1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes.
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Each release reports the NEWS in the following sections:
9 * Changes to the distribution
10 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
11 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
12 * Changes to the C interface
15 Changes since the stable branch:
17 * Changes to the distribution
19 ** Guile is now licensed with the GNU Lesser General Public License.
21 ** The manual is now licensed with the GNU Free Documentation License.
23 ** Guile now requires GNU MP (http://swox.com/gmp).
25 Guile now uses the GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic.
26 At the moment it is being used to handle Guile's bignums.
28 ** Guile now has separate private and public configuration headers.
30 Guile now has config.h and libguile/scmconfig.h. The former is not
31 installed and is private. The latter is installed and used by Guile's
32 public headers. config.h is generated by configure and autoheader,
33 and scmconfig.h is generated by a small C program, gen-scmconfig at
34 build time based in part on the contents of config.h.
36 Seen libguile/__scm.h and gen-scmconfig.c for more information.
38 Note too that nearly all public defines are now set to either 1 or 0
39 rather than being set to 1 or left undefined. See gen-scmconfig.c and
40 the GNU Coding Guidelines for the rationale. However, pre-existing
41 defines that were not renamed were not changed. i.e. GUILE_DEBUG is
42 still either 1 or undefined.
44 ** The INSTALL file is now the generic automake installed one.
46 Guile specific instructions can be found in the README.
48 ** Guile now provides and uses an "effective" version number.
50 Guile now provides scm_effective_version and effective-version
51 functions which return the "effective" version number. This is just
52 the normal full version string without the final micro-version number,
53 so the current effective-version is "1.6". The effective version
54 should remain unchanged during a stable series, and should be used for
55 items like the versioned share directory name
56 i.e. /usr/share/guile/1.6.
58 Providing an unchanging version number during a stable release for
59 things like the versioned share directory can be particularly
60 important for Guile "add-on" packages, since it provides a directory
61 that they can install to that won't be changed out from under them
62 with each micro release during a stable series.
64 ** Thread implementation has changed.
66 When you configure "--with-threads=null", you will get the usual
67 threading API (call-with-new-thread, make-mutex, etc), but you can't
68 actually create new threads. Also, "--with-threads=no" is now
69 equivalent to "--with-threads=null". This means that the thread API
70 is always present, although you might not be able to create new
73 When you configure "--with-threads=pthreads" or "--with-threads=yes",
74 you will get threads that are implemented with the portable POSIX
75 threads. These threads can run concurrently (unlike the previous
76 "coop" thread implementation), but need to cooperate for things like
77 the GC. See the manual for details. [XXX - write this.]
79 The default is "pthreads", unless your platform doesn't have pthreads,
80 in which case "null" threads are used.
82 ** New module (ice-9 serialize):
84 (serialize FORM1 ...) and (parallelize FORM1 ...) are useful when
85 you don't trust the thread safety of most of your program, but
86 where you have some section(s) of code which you consider can run
87 in parallel to other sections.
89 They "flag" (with dynamic extent) sections of code to be of
90 "serial" or "parallel" nature and have the single effect of
91 preventing a serial section from being run in parallel with any
92 serial section (including itself).
94 Both serialize and parallelize can be nested. If so, the
95 inner-most construct is in effect.
97 NOTE 1: A serial section can run in parallel with a parallel
100 NOTE 2: If a serial section S is "interrupted" by a parallel
101 section P in the following manner: S = S1 P S2, S2 is not
102 guaranteed to be resumed by the same thread that previously
105 WARNING: Spawning new threads within a serial section have
106 undefined effects. It is OK, though, to spawn threads in unflagged
107 sections of code where neither serialize or parallelize is in
110 A typical usage is when Guile is used as scripting language in some
111 application doing heavy computations. If each thread is
112 encapsulated with a serialize form, you can then put a parallelize
113 form around the code performing the heavy computations (typically a
114 C code primitive), enabling the computations to run in parallel
115 while the scripting code runs single-threadedly.
117 ** New module (srfi srfi-26)
119 This is an implementation of SRFI-26.
121 ** New module (srfi srfi-31)
123 This is an implementation of SRFI-31 which provides a special form
124 `rec' for recursive evaluation.
126 ** Guile now includes its own version of libltdl.
128 We now use a modified version of libltdl that allows us to make
129 improvements to it without having to rely on libtool releases.
131 ** The --enable-htmldoc option has been removed from 'configure'.
133 Support for translating the documentation into HTML is now always
134 provided. Use 'make html'.
136 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
138 ** New command line option `--no-debug'.
140 Specifying `--no-debug' on the command line will keep the debugging
141 evaluator turned off, even for interactive sessions.
143 ** User-init file ~/.guile is now loaded with the debugging evaluator.
145 Previously, the normal evaluator would have been used. Using the
146 debugging evaluator gives better error messages.
148 ** The '-e' option now 'read's its argument.
150 This is to allow the new '(@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)' construct to
151 be used with '-e'. For example, you can now write a script like
154 exec guile -e '(@ (demo) main)' -s "$0" "$@"
157 (define-module (demo)
161 (format #t "Demo: ~a~%" args))
164 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
166 ** New syntax '@' and '@@':
168 You can now directly refer to variables exported from a module by
171 (@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME)
173 For example (@ (ice-9 pretty-print) pretty-print) will directly access
174 the pretty-print variable exported from the (ice-9 pretty-print)
175 module. You don't need to 'use' that module first. You can also use
178 The related syntax (@@ MODULE-NAME VARIABLE-NAME) works just like '@',
179 but it can also access variables that have not been exported. It is
180 intended only for kluges and temporary fixes and for debugging, not
183 ** 'while' now provides 'break' and 'continue'
185 break and continue were previously bound in a while loop, but not
186 documented, and continue didn't quite work properly. The undocumented
187 parameter to break which gave a return value for the while has been
190 ** 'call-with-current-continuation' is now also available under the name
193 ** Checking for duplicate bindings in module system
195 The module system now can check for name conflicts among imported
198 The behavior can be controlled by specifying one or more duplicates
199 handlers. For example, to make Guile return an error for every name
207 The new default behavior of the module system when a name collision
208 has been detected is to
210 1. Give priority to bindings marked as a replacement.
211 2. Issue a warning (different warning if overriding core binding).
212 3. Give priority to the last encountered binding (this corresponds to
215 If you want the old behavior back without replacements or warnings you
218 (default-duplicate-binding-handler 'last)
220 to your .guile init file.
222 The syntax for the :duplicates option is:
224 :duplicates HANDLER-NAME | (HANDLER1-NAME HANDLER2-NAME ...)
226 Specifying multiple handlers is useful since some handlers (such as
227 replace) can defer conflict resolution to others. Each handler is
228 tried until a binding is selected.
230 Currently available duplicates handlers are:
232 check report an error for bindings with a common name
233 warn issue a warning for bindings with a common name
234 replace replace bindings which have an imported replacement
235 warn-override-core issue a warning for imports which override core bindings
236 and accept the override
237 first select the first encountered binding (override)
238 last select the last encountered binding (override)
240 These two are provided by the (oop goops) module:
242 merge-generics merge generic functions with a common name
243 into an <extended-generic>
244 merge-accessors merge accessors with a common name
246 The default duplicates handler is:
248 (replace warn-override-core warn last)
250 A recommended handler (which is likely to correspond to future Guile
251 behavior) can be installed with:
253 (default-duplicate-binding-handler '(replace warn-override-core check))
255 ** New define-module option: :replace
257 :replace works as :export, but, in addition, marks the binding as a
260 A typical example is `format' in (ice-9 format) which is a replacement
261 for the core binding `format'.
263 ** Adding prefixes to imported bindings in the module system
265 There is now a new :use-module option :prefix. It can be used to add
266 a prefix to all imported bindings.
269 :use-module ((bar) :prefix bar:))
271 will import all bindings exported from bar, but rename them by adding
274 ** Merging generic functions
276 It is sometimes tempting to use GOOPS accessors with short names.
277 For example, it is tempting to use the name `x' for the x-coordinate
280 Assume that we work with a graphical package which needs to use two
281 independent vector packages for 2D and 3D vectors respectively. If
282 both packages export `x' we will encounter a name collision.
284 This can now be resolved automagically with the duplicates handler
285 `merge-generics' which gives the module system license to merge all
286 generic functions sharing a common name:
288 (define-module (math 2D-vectors)
289 :use-module (oop goops)
292 (define-module (math 3D-vectors)
293 :use-module (oop goops)
296 (define-module (my-module)
297 :use-module (math 2D-vectors)
298 :use-module (math 3D-vectors)
299 :duplicates merge-generics)
301 x in (my-module) will now share methods with x in both imported
304 There will, in fact, now be three distinct generic functions named
305 `x': x in (2D-vectors), x in (3D-vectors), and x in (my-module). The
306 last function will be an <extended-generic>, extending the previous
309 Let's call the imported generic functions the "ancestor functions". x
310 in (my-module) is, in turn, a "descendant function" of the imported
311 functions, extending its ancestors.
313 For any generic function G, the applicable methods are selected from
314 the union of the methods of the descendant functions, the methods of G
315 itself and the methods of the ancestor functions.
317 This, ancestor functions share methods with their descendants and vice
318 versa. This implies that x in (math 2D-vectors) can will share the
319 methods of x in (my-module) and vice versa, while x in (math 2D-vectors)
320 doesn't share the methods of x in (math 3D-vectors), thus preserving
323 Sharing is dynamic, so that adding new methods to a descendant implies
324 adding it to the ancestor.
326 If duplicates checking is desired in the above example, the following
327 form of the :duplicates option can be used instead:
329 :duplicates (merge-generics check)
331 ** New function: effective-version
333 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
334 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
335 to the distribution" above.
337 ** Futures: future, make-future, future-ref
339 Futures are like promises, but begun immediately in a new thread. See
340 the "Futures" section in the reference manual.
342 ** New threading functions: parallel, letpar, par-map, and friends
344 These are convenient ways to run calculations in parallel in new
345 threads. See "Parallel forms" in the manual for details.
347 ** Fair mutexes and condition variables
349 Fair mutexes and condition variables have been added. The fairness
350 means that scheduling is arranged to give as equal time shares as
351 possible and that threads are awakened in a first-in-first-out
352 manner. This is not guaranteed with standard mutexes and condition
355 In addition, fair mutexes are recursive. Locking a fair mutex that
356 you have already locked will succeed. Every call to lock-mutex must
357 be matched with a call to unlock-mutex. Only the last call to
358 unlock-mutex will actually unlock the mutex.
360 A fair condition variable must be used together with a fair mutex,
361 just as a standard condition variable must be used together with a
364 ** New functions: make-fair-mutex, make-fair-condition-variable'
366 Make a new fair mutex and a new fair condition variable respectively.
368 ** New function 'try-mutex'.
370 This function will attempt to lock a mutex but will return immediately
371 instead if blocking and indicate failure.
373 ** Waiting on a condition variable can have a timeout.
375 The funtion 'wait-condition-variable' now takes a third, optional
376 argument that specifies the point in time where the waiting should be
379 ** New function 'broadcast-condition-variable'.
381 ** New functions 'all-threads' and 'current-thread'.
383 ** Signals and system asyncs work better with threads.
385 The function 'sigaction' now takes a fourth, optional, argument that
386 specifies the thread that the handler should run in. When the
387 argument is omitted, the handler will run in the thread that called
390 Likewise, 'system-async-mark' takes a second, optional, argument that
391 specifies the thread that the async should run in. When it is
392 omitted, the async will run in the thread that called
395 C code can use the new functions scm_sigaction_for_thread and
396 scm_system_async_mark_for_thread to pass the new thread argument.
398 ** The function 'system-async' is deprecated.
400 You can now pass any zero-argument procedure to 'system-async-mark'.
401 The function 'system-async' will just return its argument unchanged
404 ** New functions 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' and
405 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
407 The expression (call-with-blocked-asyncs PROC) will call PROC and will
408 block execution of system asyncs for the current thread by one level
409 while PROC runs. Likewise, call-with-unblocked-asyncs will call a
410 procedure and will unblock the execution of system asyncs by one
411 level for the current thread.
413 Only system asyncs are affected by these functions.
415 ** The functions 'mask-signals' and 'unmask-signals' are deprecated.
417 Use 'call-with-blocked-asyncs' or 'call-with-unblocked-asyncs'
418 instead. Those functions are easier to use correctly and can be
421 ** New function 'unsetenv'.
423 ** New macro 'define-syntax-public'.
425 It works like 'define-syntax' and also exports the defined macro (but
428 ** There is support for Infinity and NaNs.
430 Following PLT Scheme, Guile can now work with infinite numbers, and
433 There is new syntax for numbers: "+inf.0" (infinity), "-inf.0"
434 (negative infinity), "+nan.0" (not-a-number), and "-nan.0" (same as
435 "+nan.0"). These numbers are inexact and have no exact counterpart.
437 Dividing by an inexact zero returns +inf.0 or -inf.0, depending on the
438 sign of the dividend. The infinities are integers, and they answer #t
439 for both 'even?' and 'odd?'. The +nan.0 value is not an integer and is
440 not '=' to itself, but '+nan.0' is 'eqv?' to itself.
451 ERROR: Numerical overflow
453 Two new predicates 'inf?' and 'nan?' can be used to test for the
456 ** Inexact zero can have a sign.
458 Guile can now distinguish between plus and minus inexact zero, if your
459 platform supports this, too. The two zeros are equal according to
460 '=', but not according to 'eqv?'. For example
471 ** Guile now has exact rationals.
473 Guile can now represent fractions such as 1/3 exactly. Computing with
474 them is also done exactly, of course:
479 ** 'floor', 'ceiling', 'round' and 'truncate' now return exact numbers
482 For example: (floor 2) now returns an exact 2 where in the past it
483 returned an inexact 2.0. Likewise, (floor 5/4) returns an exact 1.
485 ** inexact->exact no longer returns only integers.
487 Without exact rationals, the closest exact number was always an
488 integer, but now inexact->exact returns the fraction that is exactly
489 equal to a floating point number. For example:
491 (inexact->exact 1.234)
492 => 694680242521899/562949953421312
494 When you want the old behavior, use 'round' explicitely:
496 (inexact->exact (round 1.234))
499 ** New function 'rationalize'.
501 This function finds a simple fraction that is close to a given real
502 number. For example (and compare with inexact->exact above):
504 (rationalize (inexact->exact 1.234) 1/2000)
507 Note that, as required by R5RS, rationalize returns only then an exact
508 result when both its arguments are exact.
510 ** 'odd?' and 'even?' work also for inexact integers.
512 Previously, (odd? 1.0) would signal an error since only exact integers
513 were recognized as integers. Now (odd? 1.0) returns #t, (odd? 2.0)
514 returns #f and (odd? 1.5) signals an error.
516 ** We now have uninterned symbols.
518 The new function 'make-symbol' will return a uninterned symbol. This
519 is a symbol that is unique and is guaranteed to remain unique.
520 However, uninterned symbols can not yet be read back in.
522 Use the new function 'symbol-interned?' to check whether a symbol is
525 ** pretty-print has more options.
527 The function pretty-print from the (ice-9 pretty-print) module can now
528 also be invoked with keyword arguments that control things like
529 maximum output width. See the manual for details.
531 ** Variables have no longer a special behavior for `equal?'.
533 Previously, comparing two variables with `equal?' would recursivly
534 compare their values. This is no longer done. Variables are now only
535 `equal?' if they are `eq?'.
537 ** `(begin)' is now valid.
539 You can now use an empty `begin' form. It will yield #<unspecified>
540 when evaluated and simply be ignored in a definition context.
542 ** Deprecated: procedure->macro
544 Change your code to use either procedure->memoizing-macro or, probably better,
545 to use r5rs macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done
546 during evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
548 ** Soft ports now allow a `char-ready?' procedure
550 The vector argument to `make-soft-port' can now have a length of
551 either 5 or 6. (Previously the length had to be 5.) The optional 6th
552 element is interpreted as an `input-waiting' thunk -- i.e. a thunk
553 that returns the number of characters that can be read immediately
554 without the soft port blocking.
556 ** New debugging feature: breakpoints.
558 Guile now has breakpoints. For details see the `Debugging Features'
559 chapter in the reference manual.
561 ** Deprecated: undefine
563 There is no replacement for undefine.
565 ** call-with-output-string doesn't segv on closed port
567 Previously call-with-output-string would give a segmentation fault if
568 the string port was closed by the called function. An exception is
571 ** (ice-9 popen) duplicate pipe fd fix
573 open-pipe, open-input-pipe and open-output-pipe left an extra copy of
574 their pipe file descriptor in the child, which was normally harmless,
575 but it can prevent the parent seeing eof or a broken pipe immediately
576 and has now been fixed.
578 ** source-properties and set-source-properties! fix
580 Properties set with set-source-properties! can now be read back
581 correctly with source-properties.
585 delete and delete! now call the "=" procedure with arguments in the
586 order described by the SRFI-1 specification
588 list-copy now accepts improper lists, per the specification.
592 Larger values in 64-bit vectors should print correctly now.
596 date-week-number now correctly respects the requested day of week
599 * Changes to the C interface
601 ** There is the new notion of 'discouraged' features.
603 This is a milder form of deprecation.
605 Things that are discouraged should not be used in new code, but it is
606 OK to leave them in old code for now. When a discouraged feature is
607 used, no warning message is printed like there is for 'deprecated'
608 features. Also, things that are merely discouraged are nevertheless
609 implemented efficiently, while deprecated features can be very slow.
611 You can omit discouraged features from libguile by configuring it with
612 the '--disable-discouraged' option.
614 ** A new family of functions for converting between C values and
615 Scheme values has been added.
617 These functions follow a common naming scheme and are designed to be
618 easier to use, thread-safe and more future-proof than the older
623 These are predicates that return a C boolean: 1 or 0. Instead of
624 SCM_NFALSEP, you can now use scm_is_true, for example.
626 - <type> scm_to_<type> (SCM val, ...)
628 These are functions that convert a Scheme value into an appropriate
629 C value. For example, you can use scm_to_int to safely convert from
632 - SCM scm_from_<type>) (<type> val, ...)
634 These functions convert from a C type to a SCM value; for example,
635 scm_from_int for ints.
637 There is a huge number of these functions, for numbers, strings,
638 symbols, vectors, etc. They are documented in the reference manual in
639 the API section together with the types that they apply to.
641 ** New functions for dealing with complex numbers in C have been added.
643 The new functions are scm_c_make_rectangular, scm_c_make_polar,
644 scm_c_real_part, scm_c_imag_part, scm_c_magnitude and scm_c_angle.
645 They work like scm_make_rectangular etc but take or return doubles
648 ** The function scm_make_complex has been discouraged.
650 Use scm_c_make_rectangular instead.
652 ** The INUM macros have been deprecated.
654 A lot of code uses these macros to do general integer conversions,
655 although they only work correctly with fixnums. Use the following
658 SCM_INUMP -> scm_is_integer or similar
659 SCM_NINUMP -> !scm_is_integer or similar
660 SCM_MAKINUM -> scm_from_int or similar
661 SCM_INUM -> scm_to_int or similar
663 SCM_VALIDATE_INUM_* -> Do not use these, scm_to_int, etc. will
664 do the validating for you.
666 ** The scm_num2<type> and scm_<type>2num functions and scm_make_real
667 have been discouraged.
669 Use the newer scm_to_<type> and scm_from_<type> functions instead for
670 new code. The functions have been discouraged since they don't fit
673 ** The 'boolean' macros SCM_FALSEP etc have been discouraged.
675 They have strange names, especially SCM_NFALSEP, and SCM_BOOLP
676 evaluates its argument twice. Use scm_is_true, etc. instead for new
679 ** The macro SCM_EQ_P has been discouraged.
681 Use scm_is_eq for new code, which fits better into the naming
684 ** The functions scm_round and scm_truncate have been deprecated and
685 are now available as scm_c_round and scm_c_truncate, respectively.
687 These functions occupy the names that scm_round_number and
688 scm_truncate_number should have.
690 ** SCM_CELL_WORD_LOC has been deprecated.
692 Use the new macro SCM_CELL_OBJECT_LOC instead, which return a pointer
693 to a SCM, as opposed to a pointer to a scm_t_bits.
695 This was done to allow the correct use of pointers into the Scheme
696 heap. Previously, the heap words were of type scm_t_bits and local
697 variables and function arguments were of type SCM, making it
698 non-standards-conformant to have a pointer that can point to both.
700 ** New macros SCM_SMOB_DATA_2, SM_SMOB_DATA_3, etc.
702 These macros should be used instead of SCM_CELL_WORD_2/3 to access the
703 second and third words of double smobs. Likewise for
704 SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_2 and SCM_SET_SMOB_DATA_3.
706 Also, there is SCM_SMOB_FLAGS and SCM_SET_SMOB_FLAGS that should be
707 used to get and set the 16 exra bits in the zeroth word of a smob.
709 And finally, there is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT and SCM_SMOB_SET_OBJECT for
710 accesing the first immediate word of a smob as a SCM value, and there
711 is SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_LOC for getting a pointer to the first immediate
712 smob words. Like wise for SCM_SMOB_OBJECT_2, etc.
714 ** New way to deal with non-local exits and reentries.
716 There is a new set of functions that essentially do what
717 scm_internal_dynamic_wind does, but in a way that is more convenient
718 for C code in some situations. Here is a quick example of how to
719 prevent a potential memory leak:
728 mem = scm_malloc (100);
729 scm_frame_unwind_handler (free, mem, SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITELY);
731 /* MEM would leak if BAR throws an error.
732 SCM_FRAME_UNWIND_HANDLER frees it nevertheless. */
738 /* Because of SCM_F_WIND_EXPLICITELY, MEM will be freed by
739 SCM_FRAME_END as well.
743 For full documentation, see the node "Frames" in the manual.
745 ** New way to block and unblock asyncs
747 In addition to scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs you can now also use
748 scm_frame_block_asyncs in a 'frame' (see above). Likewise for
749 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs and scm_frame_unblock_asyncs.
751 ** New way to temporarily set the current input, output or error ports
753 C code can now use scm_frame_current_<foo>_port in a 'frame' (see
754 above). <foo> is one of "input", "output" or "error".
756 ** New way to temporarily set fluids
758 C code can now use scm_frame_fluid in a 'frame' (see
759 above) to temporarily set the value of a fluid.
761 ** New types scm_t_intmax and scm_t_uintmax.
763 On platforms that have them, these types are identical to intmax_t and
764 uintmax_t, respectively. On other platforms, they are identical to
765 the largest integer types that Guile knows about.
767 ** scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize have been removed from public use.
769 For guile internal use, the functions scm_i_unmemocopy_expr,
770 scm_i_unmemocopy_body and scm_i_unmemoize_expr are provided to replace
771 scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize. User code should not have used
772 scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize and thus should not use the replacement
775 Background: Formerly, scm_unmemocopy and scm_unmemoize would have allowed to
776 unmemoize a single expression as well as a sequence of body forms. This would
777 have lead to problems when unmemoizing code of the new memoizer. Now the two
778 cases have to be distinguished.
781 ** Many public #defines with generic names have been made private.
783 #defines with generic names like HAVE_FOO or SIZEOF_FOO have been made
784 private or renamed with a more suitable public name. See below for
785 the ones which have been renamed.
787 ** HAVE_STDINT_H and HAVE_INTTYPES_H have been removed from public use.
789 HAVE_STDINT_H and HAVE_INTTYPES_H removed from public use. These are
790 no longer needed since the older uses of stdint.h and inttypes.h are
791 now handled by configure.in and gen-scmconfig.c.
793 ** USE_DLL_IMPORT is no longer defined publically.
795 gen-scmconfig now uses it to decide what contents to place in the
796 public scmconfig.h header without adding the USE_DLL_IMPORT itself.
798 ** HAVE_LIMITS_H has been removed from public use.
800 gen-scmconfig now just uses HAVE_LIMITS_H to decide whether or not to
801 add a limits.h include in scmconfig.h.
803 ** time.h, sys/time.h, etc. #ifdefery has been removed from public headers.
805 gen-scmconfig now just uses the same logic to decide what time related
806 #includes to add to scmconfig.h.
808 ** HAVE_STRUCT_TIMESPEC has been removed from public use.
810 scmconfig.h now just defines scm_t_timespec.
812 ** HAVE_PTRDIFF has been removed from public use and Guile doesn't
815 Guile now publically defines scm_t_ptrdiff and
816 SCM_SIZEOF_SCM_T_PTRDIFF in scmconfig.h, and all occurrences of
817 ptrdiff_t have been replaced with scm_t_ptrdiff.
819 Guile defines its own type this rather than just relying on ptrdiff_t
820 and SCM_SIZEOF_PTRDIFF_T because Guile actually typedefs long to
821 scm_t_ptrdiff when ptrdiff_t isn't available. A public "typedef long
822 ptrdiff_t" could conflict with other headers.
824 ** HAVE_UINTPTR_T and HAVE_UINTPTR_T have been removed from public use.
826 They are replaced by public definitions of SCM_SIZEOF_UINTPTR_T and
827 SCM_SIZEOF_INTPTR_T. These are defined to 0 if the corresponding type
830 ** The public #define STDC_HEADERS has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_STDC_HEADERS.
832 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
834 ** The public #define HAVE_SYS_SELECT has been renamed to
835 SCM_HAVE_SYS_SELECT_H.
837 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
839 ** The public #define HAVE_FLOATINGPOINT_H has been renamed to
840 SCM_HAVE_FLOATINGPOINT_H.
842 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
844 ** The public #define HAVE_IEEEFP_H has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_IEEEFP_H.
846 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
848 ** The public #define HAVE_NAN_H has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_NAN_H.
850 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
852 ** The public #define HAVE_WINSOCK2_H has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_WINSOCK2_H.
854 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
856 ** The public #define HAVE_ARRAYS has been renamed to SCM_HAVE_ARRAYS.
858 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
860 ** The public #define STACK_GROWS_UP has been renamed to SCM_STACK_GROWS_UP.
862 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
864 ** The public #define USE_PTHREAD_THREADS has been renamed to
865 SCM_USE_PTHREAD_THREADS.
867 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
869 ** The public #define USE_NULL_THREADS has been renamed to
870 SCM_USE_NULL_THREADS.
872 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
874 ** The public #define USE_COOP_THREADS has been renamed to
875 SCM_USE_COOP_THREADS.
877 The previous name was too generic for the global public namespace.
879 ** SCM_C_INLINE is publically defined if possible.
881 If the platform has a way to define inline functions, SCM_C_INLINE
882 will be defined to that text. Otherwise it will be undefined. This
883 is a little bit different than autoconf's normal handling of the
884 inline define via AC_C_INLINE.
886 ** Guile now publically defines some basic type infrastructure.
891 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_CHAR
893 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_SHORT
895 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_LONG
897 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_INT
898 SCM_SIZEOF_LONG_LONG /* defined to 0 if type not available */
899 SCM_SIZEOF_UNSIGNED_LONG_LONG /* defined to 0 if type not available */
908 Guile always defines these to 0 or 1
913 and when either of these are defined to 1, also defines
924 ** The macro SCM_IFLAGP now only returns true for flags
926 User code should never have used this macro anyway. And, you should not use
927 it in the future either. Thus, the following explanation is just for the
928 impropable case that your code actually made use of this macro, and that you
929 are willing to depend on internals which will probably change in the near
932 Formerly, SCM_IFLAGP also returned true for evaluator bytecodes created with
933 SCM_MAKSPCSYM (short instructions) and evaluator bytecodes created with
934 SCM_MAKISYM (short instructions). Now, SCM_IFLAG only returns true for
935 Guile's special constants created with SCM_MAKIFLAG. To achieve the old
936 behaviour, instead of
940 you would have to write
942 (SCM_ISYMP(x) || SCM_IFLAGP(x))
944 ** The macro SCM_TYP16S has been deprecated.
946 This macro is not intended for public use. However, if you allocated types
947 with tc16 type codes in a way that you would have needed this macro, you are
948 expected to have a deep knowledge of Guile's type system. Thus, you should
949 know how to replace this macro.
951 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_INEXACTP has been deprecated.
953 Use SCM_INEXACTP instead.
955 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_REALP has been deprecated.
957 Use SCM_REALP instead.
959 ** The macro SCM_SLOPPY_COMPLEXP has been deprecated.
961 Use SCM_COMPLEXP instead.
963 ** The preprocessor define USE_THREADS has been deprecated.
965 Going forward, assume that the thread API is always present.
967 ** The preprocessor define GUILE_ISELECT has been deprecated.
969 Going forward, assume that scm_internal_select is always present.
971 ** The preprocessor define READER_EXTENSIONS has been deprecated.
973 Going forward, assume that the features represented by
974 READER_EXTENSIONS are always present.
976 ** The preprocessor define DEBUG_EXTENSIONS has been deprecated.
978 Going forward, assume that the features represented by
979 DEBUG_EXTENSIONS are always present.
981 ** The preprocessor define DYNAMIC_LINKING has been deprecated.
983 Going forward, assume that the features represented by
984 DYNAMIC_LINKING are always present.
986 ** The preprocessor define STACK_DIRECTION has been deprecated.
988 There should be no need to know about the stack direction for ordinary
989 programs. (Do not use.)
991 ** New function: scm_effective_version
993 Returns the "effective" version number. This is just the normal full
994 version string without the final micro-version number. See "Changes
995 to the distribution" above.
997 ** The function scm_call_with_new_thread has a new prototype.
999 Instead of taking a list with the thunk and handler, these two
1000 arguments are now passed directly:
1002 SCM scm_call_with_new_thread (SCM thunk, SCM handler);
1004 This is an incompatible change.
1006 ** The value 'scm_mask_ints' is no longer writable.
1008 Previously, you could set scm_mask_ints directly. This is no longer
1009 possible. Use scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1010 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs instead.
1012 ** New functions scm_c_call_with_blocked_asyncs and
1013 scm_c_call_with_unblocked_asyncs
1015 Like scm_call_with_blocked_asyncs etc. but for C functions.
1017 ** New snarfer macro SCM_DEFINE_PUBLIC.
1019 This is like SCM_DEFINE, but also calls scm_c_export for the defined
1020 function in the init section.
1022 ** The snarfer macro SCM_SNARF_INIT is now officially supported.
1024 ** New macros SCM_VECTOR_REF and SCM_VECTOR_SET.
1026 Use these in preference to SCM_VELTS.
1028 ** The SCM_VELTS macros now returns a read-only vector. For writing,
1029 use the new macros SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS or SCM_VECTOR_SET. The use of
1030 SCM_WRITABLE_VELTS is discouraged, though.
1032 ** Garbage collector rewrite.
1034 The garbage collector is cleaned up a lot, and now uses lazy
1035 sweeping. This is reflected in the output of (gc-stats); since cells
1036 are being freed when they are allocated, the cells-allocated field
1037 stays roughly constant.
1039 For malloc related triggers, the behavior is changed. It uses the same
1040 heuristic as the cell-triggered collections. It may be tuned with the
1041 environment variables GUILE_MIN_YIELD_MALLOC. This is the percentage
1042 for minimum yield of malloc related triggers. The default is 40.
1043 GUILE_INIT_MALLOC_LIMIT sets the initial trigger for doing a GC. The
1046 Debugging operations for the freelist have been deprecated, along with
1047 the C variables that control garbage collection. The environment
1048 variables GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE, GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2,
1049 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1, and GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2 should be used.
1051 ** The function scm_definedp has been renamed to scm_defined_p
1053 The name scm_definedp is deprecated.
1055 ** The struct scm_cell has been renamed to scm_t_cell
1057 This is in accordance to Guile's naming scheme for types. Note that
1058 the name scm_cell is now used for a function that allocates and
1059 initializes a new cell (see below).
1061 ** New functions for memory management
1063 A new set of functions for memory management has been added since the
1064 old way (scm_must_malloc, scm_must_free, etc) was error prone and
1065 indeed, Guile itself contained some long standing bugs that could
1066 cause aborts in long running programs.
1068 The new functions are more symmetrical and do not need cooperation
1069 from smob free routines, among other improvements.
1071 The new functions are scm_malloc, scm_realloc, scm_calloc, scm_strdup,
1072 scm_strndup, scm_gc_malloc, scm_gc_calloc, scm_gc_realloc,
1073 scm_gc_free, scm_gc_register_collectable_memory, and
1074 scm_gc_unregister_collectable_memory. Refer to the manual for more
1075 details and for upgrading instructions.
1077 The old functions for memory management have been deprecated. They
1078 are: scm_must_malloc, scm_must_realloc, scm_must_free,
1079 scm_must_strdup, scm_must_strndup, scm_done_malloc, scm_done_free.
1081 ** New function: scm_str2string
1083 This function creates a scheme string from a 0-terminated C string. The input
1086 ** Declarations of exported features are marked with SCM_API.
1088 Every declaration of a feature that belongs to the exported Guile API
1089 has been marked by adding the macro "SCM_API" to the start of the
1090 declaration. This macro can expand into different things, the most
1091 common of which is just "extern" for Unix platforms. On Win32, it can
1092 be used to control which symbols are exported from a DLL.
1094 If you `#define SCM_IMPORT' before including <libguile.h>, SCM_API
1095 will expand into "__declspec (dllimport) extern", which is needed for
1096 linking to the Guile DLL in Windows.
1098 There are also SCM_RL_IMPORT, QT_IMPORT, SCM_SRFI1314_IMPORT, and
1099 SCM_SRFI4_IMPORT, for the corresponding libraries.
1101 ** SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 have been deprecated.
1103 Use the new functions scm_cell and scm_double_cell instead. The old macros
1104 had problems because with them allocation and initialization was separated and
1105 the GC could sometimes observe half initialized cells. Only careful coding by
1106 the user of SCM_NEWCELL and SCM_NEWCELL2 could make this safe and efficient.
1108 ** CHECK_ENTRY, CHECK_APPLY and CHECK_EXIT have been deprecated.
1110 Use the variables scm_check_entry_p, scm_check_apply_p and scm_check_exit_p
1113 ** SRCBRKP has been deprecated.
1115 Use scm_c_source_property_breakpoint_p instead.
1117 ** Deprecated: scm_makmacro
1119 Change your code to use either scm_makmmacro or, probably better, to use r5rs
1120 macros. Also, be aware that macro expansion will not be done during
1121 evaluation, but prior to evaluation.
1123 ** Removed from scm_root_state: def_inp, def_outp, def_errp, together
1124 with corresponding macros scm_def_inp, scm_def_outp and scm_def_errp.
1125 These were undocumented and unused copies of the standard ports at the
1126 time that Guile was initialised. Normally the current ports should be
1127 used instead, obtained from scm_current_input_port () etc. If an
1128 application needs to retain earlier ports, it should save them in a
1129 gc-protected location.
1131 ** Removed compile time option MEMOIZE_LOCALS
1133 Now, caching of local variable positions during memoization is mandatory.
1134 However, the option to disable the caching has most probably not been used
1137 ** Removed compile time option SCM_RECKLESS
1139 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
1140 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
1142 ** Removed compile time option SCM_CAUTIOUS
1144 Full number of arguments checking of closures is mandatory now. However, the
1145 option to disable the checking has most probably not been used anyway.
1147 ** Deprecated configure flags USE_THREADS and GUILE_ISELECT
1149 Previously, when the C preprocessor macro USE_THREADS was defined,
1150 libguile included a thread API. This API is now always included, even
1151 when threads are not really supported. Thus, you don't need to test
1154 Analogously, GUILE_ISELECT was defined when the function
1155 scm_internal_select was provided by Guile. This function is now
1156 always defined, and GUILE_ISELECT with it.
1158 ** New function scm_c_port_for_each.
1160 This function is like scm_port_for_each but takes a pointer to a C
1161 function as the callback instead of a SCM value.
1163 ** Deprecated definitions of error strings: scm_s_expression, scm_s_test,
1164 scm_s_body, scm_s_bindings, scm_s_variable, scm_s_clauses, scm_s_formals
1166 These error message strings were used to issue syntax error messages by
1167 guile's evaluator. It's unlikely that they have been used by user code.
1169 ** Deprecated helper macros for evaluation and application: SCM_EVALIM2,
1170 SCM_EVALIM, SCM_XEVAL, SCM_XEVALCAR
1172 These macros were used in the implementation of the evaluator. It's unlikely
1173 that they have been used by user code.
1175 ** Deprecated helper functions for evaluation and application:
1176 scm_m_expand_body, scm_macroexp
1178 These functions were used in the implementation of the evaluator. It's
1179 unlikely that they have been used by user code.
1181 ** Deprecated functions and variables for evaluation and application:
1182 scm_ceval, scm_deval and scm_ceval_ptr
1184 These functions and variables were used in the implementation of the
1185 evaluator. It's unlikely that they have been used by user code. If you have
1186 used these functions, switch to scm_eval or scm_eval_x.
1188 ** Deprecated functions for unmemoization: scm_unmemocar
1190 ** Deprecated definitions for iloc and isym handling
1192 SCM_ILOC00, SCM_IDINC, SCM_IDSTMSK, SCM_IFRINC, SCM_ICDR, SCM_IFRAME,
1193 SCM_IDIST, SCM_ICDRP, SCM_ISYMNUM, SCM_ISYMCHARS, scm_isymnames.
1195 These definitions were used in the implementation of the evaluator. It's
1196 unlikely that they have been used by user code.
1198 ** Removed definitions: scm_lisp_nil, scm_lisp_t, s_nil_ify,
1199 scm_m_nil_ify, s_t_ify, scm_m_t_ify, s_0_cond, scm_m_0_cond, s_0_ify,
1200 scm_m_0_ify, s_1_ify, scm_m_1_ify, scm_debug_newcell,
1201 scm_debug_newcell2, scm_tc16_allocated, SCM_SET_SYMBOL_HASH,
1202 SCM_IM_NIL_IFY, SCM_IM_T_IFY, SCM_IM_0_COND, SCM_IM_0_IFY,
1203 SCM_IM_1_IFY, SCM_GC_SET_ALLOCATED, scm_debug_newcell,
1204 scm_debug_newcell2, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL, SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL,
1205 SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL, SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL,
1206 SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD, SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS,
1207 scm_top_level_lookup_closure_var, *top-level-lookup-closure*,
1208 scm_system_transformer, scm_eval_3, scm_eval2,
1209 root_module_lookup_closure, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP,
1210 scm_read_only_string_p, scm_make_shared_substring, scm_tc7_substring,
1211 sym_huh, SCM_VARVCELL, SCM_UDVARIABLEP, SCM_DEFVARIABLEP, scm_mkbig,
1212 scm_big2inum, scm_adjbig, scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big,
1213 scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl, SCM_FIXNUM_BIT, SCM_SETCHARS,
1214 SCM_SLOPPY_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_LENGTH_MAX,
1215 SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS,
1216 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR, scm_sym2vcell, scm_intern,
1217 scm_intern0, scm_sysintern, scm_sysintern0,
1218 scm_sysintern0_no_module_lookup, scm_init_symbols_deprecated,
1219 scm_vector_set_length_x, scm_contregs, scm_debug_info,
1220 scm_debug_frame, SCM_DSIDEVAL, SCM_CONST_LONG, SCM_VCELL,
1221 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL, SCM_VCELL_INIT, SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL_INIT,
1222 SCM_HUGE_LENGTH, SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING,
1223 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY, SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY,
1224 SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, DIGITS, scm_small_istr2int, scm_istr2int,
1225 scm_istr2flo, scm_istring2number, scm_istr2int, scm_istr2flo,
1226 scm_istring2number, scm_vtable_index_vcell, scm_si_vcell, SCM_ECONSP,
1227 SCM_NECONSP, SCM_GLOC_VAR, SCM_GLOC_VAL, SCM_GLOC_SET_VAL,
1228 SCM_GLOC_VAL_LOC, scm_make_gloc, scm_gloc_p, scm_tc16_variable
1230 ** Deprecated definitions for debugging: scm_debug_mode, SCM_DEBUGGINGP
1232 These functions were used in the implementation of the evaluator. It's
1233 unlikely that they have been used by user code.
1235 ** Removed macro SCM_MAKSPCSYM
1237 This macro was used for defining byte codes of the evaluator. It is almost
1238 impossible that user code has used this macro.
1241 Changes since Guile 1.4:
1243 * Changes to the distribution
1245 ** A top-level TODO file is included.
1247 ** Guile now uses a versioning scheme similar to that of the Linux kernel.
1249 Guile now always uses three numbers to represent the version,
1250 i.e. "1.6.5". The first number, 1, is the major version number, the
1251 second number, 6, is the minor version number, and the third number,
1252 5, is the micro version number. Changes in major version number
1253 indicate major changes in Guile.
1255 Minor version numbers that are even denote stable releases, and odd
1256 minor version numbers denote development versions (which may be
1257 unstable). The micro version number indicates a minor sub-revision of
1258 a given MAJOR.MINOR release.
1260 In keeping with the new scheme, (minor-version) and scm_minor_version
1261 no longer return everything but the major version number. They now
1262 just return the minor version number. Two new functions
1263 (micro-version) and scm_micro_version have been added to report the
1264 micro version number.
1266 In addition, ./GUILE-VERSION now defines GUILE_MICRO_VERSION.
1268 ** New preprocessor definitions are available for checking versions.
1270 version.h now #defines SCM_MAJOR_VERSION, SCM_MINOR_VERSION, and
1271 SCM_MICRO_VERSION to the appropriate integer values.
1273 ** Guile now actively warns about deprecated features.
1275 The new configure option `--enable-deprecated=LEVEL' and the
1276 environment variable GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATED control this mechanism.
1277 See INSTALL and README for more information.
1279 ** Guile is much more likely to work on 64-bit architectures.
1281 Guile now compiles and passes "make check" with only two UNRESOLVED GC
1282 cases on Alpha and ia64 based machines now. Thanks to John Goerzen
1283 for the use of a test machine, and thanks to Stefan Jahn for ia64
1286 ** New functions: setitimer and getitimer.
1288 These implement a fairly direct interface to the libc functions of the
1291 ** The #. reader extension is now disabled by default.
1293 For safety reasons, #. evaluation is disabled by default. To
1294 re-enable it, set the fluid read-eval? to #t. For example:
1296 (fluid-set! read-eval? #t)
1298 but make sure you realize the potential security risks involved. With
1299 read-eval? enabled, reading a data file from an untrusted source can
1302 ** New SRFI modules have been added:
1304 SRFI-0 `cond-expand' is now supported in Guile, without requiring
1307 (srfi srfi-1) is a library containing many useful pair- and list-processing
1310 (srfi srfi-2) exports and-let*.
1312 (srfi srfi-4) implements homogeneous numeric vector datatypes.
1314 (srfi srfi-6) is a dummy module for now, since guile already provides
1315 all of the srfi-6 procedures by default: open-input-string,
1316 open-output-string, get-output-string.
1318 (srfi srfi-8) exports receive.
1320 (srfi srfi-9) exports define-record-type.
1322 (srfi srfi-10) exports define-reader-ctor and implements the reader
1325 (srfi srfi-11) exports let-values and let*-values.
1327 (srfi srfi-13) implements the SRFI String Library.
1329 (srfi srfi-14) implements the SRFI Character-Set Library.
1331 (srfi srfi-17) implements setter and getter-with-setter and redefines
1332 some accessor procedures as procedures with getters. (such as car,
1333 cdr, vector-ref etc.)
1335 (srfi srfi-19) implements the SRFI Time/Date Library.
1337 ** New scripts / "executable modules"
1339 Subdirectory "scripts" contains Scheme modules that are packaged to
1340 also be executable as scripts. At this time, these scripts are available:
1349 See README there for more info.
1351 These scripts can be invoked from the shell with the new program
1352 "guile-tools", which keeps track of installation directory for you.
1355 $ guile-tools display-commentary srfi/*.scm
1357 guile-tools is copied to the standard $bindir on "make install".
1359 ** New module (ice-9 stack-catch):
1361 stack-catch is like catch, but saves the current state of the stack in
1362 the fluid the-last-stack. This fluid can be useful when using the
1363 debugger and when re-throwing an error.
1365 ** The module (ice-9 and-let*) has been renamed to (ice-9 and-let-star)
1367 This has been done to prevent problems on lesser operating systems
1368 that can't tolerate `*'s in file names. The exported macro continues
1369 to be named `and-let*', of course.
1371 On systems that support it, there is also a compatibility module named
1372 (ice-9 and-let*). It will go away in the next release.
1374 ** New modules (oop goops) etc.:
1377 (oop goops describe)
1379 (oop goops active-slot)
1380 (oop goops composite-slot)
1382 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System (GOOPS) has been
1383 integrated into Guile. For further information, consult the GOOPS
1384 manual and tutorial in the `doc' directory.
1386 ** New module (ice-9 rdelim).
1388 This exports the following procedures which were previously defined
1389 in the default environment:
1391 read-line read-line! read-delimited read-delimited! %read-delimited!
1392 %read-line write-line
1394 For backwards compatibility the definitions are still imported into the
1395 default environment in this version of Guile. However you should add:
1397 (use-modules (ice-9 rdelim))
1399 to any program which uses the definitions, since this may change in
1402 Alternatively, if guile-scsh is installed, the (scsh rdelim) module
1403 can be used for similar functionality.
1405 ** New module (ice-9 rw)
1407 This is a subset of the (scsh rw) module from guile-scsh. Currently
1408 it defines two procedures:
1410 *** New function: read-string!/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1412 Read characters from a port or file descriptor into a string STR.
1413 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1414 fport. This procedure is scsh-compatible and can efficiently read
1417 *** New function: write-string/partial str [port_or_fdes [start [end]]]
1419 Write characters from a string STR to a port or file descriptor.
1420 A port must have an underlying file descriptor -- a so-called
1421 fport. This procedure is mostly compatible and can efficiently
1422 write large strings.
1424 ** New module (ice-9 match)
1426 This module includes Andrew K. Wright's pattern matcher. See
1427 ice-9/match.scm for brief description or
1429 http://www.star-lab.com/wright/code.html
1431 for complete documentation.
1433 ** New module (ice-9 buffered-input)
1435 This module provides procedures to construct an input port from an
1436 underlying source of input that reads and returns its input in chunks.
1437 The underlying input source is a Scheme procedure, specified by the
1438 caller, which the port invokes whenever it needs more input.
1440 This is useful when building an input port whose back end is Readline
1441 or a UI element such as the GtkEntry widget.
1445 The reference and tutorial documentation that was previously
1446 distributed separately, as `guile-doc', is now included in the core
1447 Guile distribution. The documentation consists of the following
1450 - The Guile Tutorial (guile-tut.texi) contains a tutorial introduction
1453 - The Guile Reference Manual (guile.texi) contains (or is intended to
1454 contain) reference documentation on all aspects of Guile.
1456 - The GOOPS Manual (goops.texi) contains both tutorial-style and
1457 reference documentation for using GOOPS, Guile's Object Oriented
1460 - The Revised^5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme
1463 See the README file in the `doc' directory for more details.
1465 ** There are a couple of examples in the examples/ directory now.
1467 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1469 ** New command line option `--use-srfi'
1471 Using this option, SRFI modules can be loaded on startup and be
1472 available right from the beginning. This makes programming portable
1473 Scheme programs easier.
1475 The option `--use-srfi' expects a comma-separated list of numbers,
1476 each representing a SRFI number to be loaded into the interpreter
1477 before starting evaluating a script file or the REPL. Additionally,
1478 the feature identifier for the loaded SRFIs is recognized by
1479 `cond-expand' when using this option.
1482 $ guile --use-srfi=8,13
1483 guile> (receive (x z) (values 1 2) (+ 1 2))
1485 guile> (string-pad "bla" 20)
1488 ** Guile now always starts up in the `(guile-user)' module.
1490 Previously, scripts executed via the `-s' option would run in the
1491 `(guile)' module and the repl would run in the `(guile-user)' module.
1492 Now every user action takes place in the `(guile-user)' module by
1495 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1497 ** Character classifiers work for non-ASCII characters.
1499 The predicates `char-alphabetic?', `char-numeric?',
1500 `char-whitespace?', `char-lower?', `char-upper?' and `char-is-both?'
1501 no longer check whether their arguments are ASCII characters.
1502 Previously, a character would only be considered alphabetic when it
1503 was also ASCII, for example.
1505 ** Previously deprecated Scheme functions have been removed:
1507 tag - no replacement.
1508 fseek - replaced by seek.
1509 list* - replaced by cons*.
1511 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
1515 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
1516 (define m (make-safe-module))
1517 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
1518 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
1519 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
1521 ** Evaluation of "()", the empty list, is now an error.
1523 Previously, the expression "()" evaluated to the empty list. This has
1524 been changed to signal a "missing expression" error. The correct way
1525 to write the empty list as a literal constant is to use quote: "'()".
1527 ** New concept of `Guile Extensions'.
1529 A Guile Extension is just a ordinary shared library that can be linked
1530 at run-time. We found it advantageous to give this simple concept a
1531 dedicated name to distinguish the issues related to shared libraries
1532 from the issues related to the module system.
1534 *** New function: load-extension
1536 Executing (load-extension lib init) is mostly equivalent to
1538 (dynamic-call init (dynamic-link lib))
1540 except when scm_register_extension has been called previously.
1541 Whenever appropriate, you should use `load-extension' instead of
1542 dynamic-link and dynamic-call.
1544 *** New C function: scm_c_register_extension
1546 This function registers a initialization function for use by
1547 `load-extension'. Use it when you don't want specific extensions to
1548 be loaded as shared libraries (for example on platforms that don't
1549 support dynamic linking).
1551 ** Auto-loading of compiled-code modules is deprecated.
1553 Guile used to be able to automatically find and link a shared
1554 library to satisfy requests for a module. For example, the module
1555 `(foo bar)' could be implemented by placing a shared library named
1556 "foo/libbar.so" (or with a different extension) in a directory on the
1559 This has been found to be too tricky, and is no longer supported. The
1560 shared libraries are now called "extensions". You should now write a
1561 small Scheme file that calls `load-extension' to load the shared
1562 library and initialize it explicitely.
1564 The shared libraries themselves should be installed in the usual
1565 places for shared libraries, with names like "libguile-foo-bar".
1567 For example, place this into a file "foo/bar.scm"
1569 (define-module (foo bar))
1571 (load-extension "libguile-foo-bar" "foobar_init")
1573 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
1575 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
1576 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
1578 (scheme-report-environment 5)
1579 (null-environment 5)
1580 (interaction-environment)
1586 ** The module system has been made more disciplined.
1588 The function `eval' will save and restore the current module around
1589 the evaluation of the specified expression. While this expression is
1590 evaluated, `(current-module)' will now return the right module, which
1591 is the module specified as the second argument to `eval'.
1593 A consequence of this change is that `eval' is not particularly
1594 useful when you want allow the evaluated code to change what module is
1595 designated as the current module and have this change persist from one
1596 call to `eval' to the next. The read-eval-print-loop is an example
1597 where `eval' is now inadequate. To compensate, there is a new
1598 function `primitive-eval' that does not take a module specifier and
1599 that does not save/restore the current module. You should use this
1600 function together with `set-current-module', `current-module', etc
1601 when you want to have more control over the state that is carried from
1602 one eval to the next.
1604 Additionally, it has been made sure that forms that are evaluated at
1605 the top level are always evaluated with respect to the current module.
1606 Previously, subforms of top-level forms such as `begin', `case',
1607 etc. did not respect changes to the current module although these
1608 subforms are at the top-level as well.
1610 To prevent strange behavior, the forms `define-module',
1611 `use-modules', `use-syntax', and `export' have been restricted to only
1612 work on the top level. The forms `define-public' and
1613 `defmacro-public' only export the new binding on the top level. They
1614 behave just like `define' and `defmacro', respectively, when they are
1615 used in a lexical environment.
1617 Also, `export' will no longer silently re-export bindings imported
1618 from a used module. It will emit a `deprecation' warning and will
1619 cease to perform any re-export in the next version. If you actually
1620 want to re-export bindings, use the new `re-export' in place of
1621 `export'. The new `re-export' will not make copies of variables when
1622 rexporting them, as `export' did wrongly.
1624 ** Module system now allows selection and renaming of imported bindings
1626 Previously, when using `use-modules' or the `#:use-module' clause in
1627 the `define-module' form, all the bindings (association of symbols to
1628 values) for imported modules were added to the "current module" on an
1629 as-is basis. This has been changed to allow finer control through two
1630 new facilities: selection and renaming.
1632 You can now select which of the imported module's bindings are to be
1633 visible in the current module by using the `:select' clause. This
1634 clause also can be used to rename individual bindings. For example:
1636 ;; import all bindings no questions asked
1637 (use-modules (ice-9 common-list))
1639 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them;
1640 ;; the current module sees: every some zonk-y zonk-n
1641 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1643 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1644 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))))
1646 You can also programmatically rename all selected bindings using the
1647 `:renamer' clause, which specifies a proc that takes a symbol and
1648 returns another symbol. Because it is common practice to use a prefix,
1649 we now provide the convenience procedure `symbol-prefix-proc'. For
1652 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1653 ;; and all four w/ prefix "CL:";
1654 ;; the current module sees: CL:every CL:some CL:zonk-y CL:zonk-n
1655 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1657 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1658 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1659 :renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'CL:)))
1661 ;; import four bindings, renaming two of them specifically,
1662 ;; and all four by upcasing.
1663 ;; the current module sees: EVERY SOME ZONK-Y ZONK-N
1664 (define (upcase-symbol sym)
1665 (string->symbol (string-upcase (symbol->string sym))))
1667 (use-modules ((ice-9 common-list)
1669 (remove-if . zonk-y)
1670 (remove-if-not . zonk-n))
1671 :renamer upcase-symbol))
1673 Note that programmatic renaming is done *after* individual renaming.
1674 Also, the above examples show `use-modules', but the same facilities are
1675 available for the `#:use-module' clause of `define-module'.
1677 See manual for more info.
1679 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
1681 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
1682 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
1683 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
1685 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
1687 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
1688 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
1689 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
1691 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
1692 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
1693 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
1694 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
1696 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
1698 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
1699 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
1701 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
1702 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
1703 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
1704 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
1705 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
1708 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
1709 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
1710 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
1711 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
1712 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
1713 successful and #f if it wasn't.
1715 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
1716 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
1717 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
1718 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
1719 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
1721 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
1722 objects are usually permanent.
1724 ** Continuations created by call-with-current-continuation now accept
1725 any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
1727 ** New function `issue-deprecation-warning'
1729 This function is used to display the deprecation messages that are
1730 controlled by GUILE_WARN_DEPRECATION as explained in the README.
1733 (issue-deprecation-warning "`id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.")
1737 ;; `id' is deprecated. Use `identity' instead.
1742 ** New syntax `begin-deprecated'
1744 When deprecated features are included (as determined by the configure
1745 option --enable-deprecated), `begin-deprecated' is identical to
1746 `begin'. When deprecated features are excluded, it always evaluates
1747 to `#f', ignoring the body forms.
1749 ** New function `make-object-property'
1751 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
1752 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
1756 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
1757 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
1761 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
1762 source properties eventually.
1764 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
1766 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
1767 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
1768 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
1770 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
1771 will be removed in the next release.
1773 ** New define-module option: pure
1775 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
1780 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
1783 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
1785 Export names NAME1 ...
1787 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
1788 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
1792 (define-module (foo)
1794 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
1797 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
1802 ** New function: object->string OBJ
1804 Return a Scheme string obtained by printing a given object.
1806 ** New function: port? X
1808 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
1809 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
1811 ** New function: file-port?
1813 Determines whether a given object is a port that is related to a file.
1815 ** New function: port-for-each proc
1817 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The return
1818 value is unspecified. More specifically, PROC is applied exactly once
1819 to every port that exists in the system at the time PORT-FOR-EACH is
1820 invoked. Changes to the port table while PORT-FOR-EACH is running
1821 have no effect as far as PORT-FOR-EACH is concerned.
1823 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
1825 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
1826 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
1827 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
1828 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
1829 to move away ports which are using NEWFD. The return value is
1832 ** New function: close-fdes fd
1834 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
1835 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
1836 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
1837 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
1840 ** New function: crypt password salt
1842 Encrypts `password' using the standard unix password encryption
1845 ** New function: chroot path
1847 Change the root directory of the running process to `path'.
1849 ** New functions: getlogin, cuserid
1851 Return the login name or the user name of the current effective user
1854 ** New functions: getpriority which who, setpriority which who prio
1856 Get or set the priority of the running process.
1858 ** New function: getpass prompt
1860 Read a password from the terminal, first displaying `prompt' and
1863 ** New function: flock file operation
1865 Set/remove an advisory shared or exclusive lock on `file'.
1867 ** New functions: sethostname name, gethostname
1869 Set or get the hostname of the machine the current process is running
1872 ** New function: mkstemp! tmpl
1874 mkstemp creates a new unique file in the file system and returns a
1875 new buffered port open for reading and writing to the file. TMPL
1876 is a string specifying where the file should be created: it must
1877 end with `XXXXXX' and will be changed in place to return the name
1878 of the temporary file.
1880 ** New function: open-input-string string
1882 Return an input string port which delivers the characters from
1883 `string'. This procedure, together with `open-output-string' and
1884 `get-output-string' implements SRFI-6.
1886 ** New function: open-output-string
1888 Return an output string port which collects all data written to it.
1889 The data can then be retrieved by `get-output-string'.
1891 ** New function: get-output-string
1893 Return the contents of an output string port.
1895 ** New function: identity
1897 Return the argument.
1899 ** socket, connect, accept etc., now have support for IPv6. IPv6 addresses
1900 are represented in Scheme as integers with normal host byte ordering.
1902 ** New function: inet-pton family address
1904 Convert a printable string network address into an integer. Note that
1905 unlike the C version of this function, the result is an integer with
1906 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1909 (inet-pton AF_INET "127.0.0.1") => 2130706433
1910 (inet-pton AF_INET6 "::1") => 1
1912 ** New function: inet-ntop family address
1914 Convert an integer network address into a printable string. Note that
1915 unlike the C version of this function, the input is an integer with
1916 normal host byte ordering. FAMILY can be `AF_INET' or `AF_INET6'.
1919 (inet-ntop AF_INET 2130706433) => "127.0.0.1"
1920 (inet-ntop AF_INET6 (- (expt 2 128) 1)) =>
1921 ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff
1925 Use `identity' instead.
1931 ** Deprecated: return-it
1935 ** Deprecated: string-character-length
1937 Use `string-length' instead.
1939 ** Deprecated: flags
1941 Use `logior' instead.
1943 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except.
1945 This was intended for closing ports in a child process after a fork,
1946 but it has the undesirable side effect of flushing buffers.
1947 port-for-each is more flexible.
1949 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
1950 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
1951 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
1953 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
1955 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
1957 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix, scm-line-incrementors
1959 ** define-method: New syntax mandatory.
1961 The new method syntax is now mandatory:
1963 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ...) BODY ...)
1964 (define-method (NAME ARG-SPEC ... . REST-ARG) BODY ...)
1966 ARG-SPEC ::= ARG-NAME | (ARG-NAME TYPE)
1967 REST-ARG ::= ARG-NAME
1969 If you have old code using the old syntax, import
1970 (oop goops old-define-method) before (oop goops) as in:
1972 (use-modules (oop goops old-define-method) (oop goops))
1974 ** Deprecated function: builtin-variable
1975 Removed function: builtin-bindings
1977 There is no longer a distinction between builtin or other variables.
1978 Use module system operations for all variables.
1980 ** Lazy-catch handlers are no longer allowed to return.
1982 That is, a call to `throw', `error', etc is now guaranteed to not
1985 ** Bugfixes for (ice-9 getopt-long)
1987 This module is now tested using test-suite/tests/getopt-long.test.
1988 The following bugs have been fixed:
1990 *** Parsing for options that are specified to have `optional' args now checks
1991 if the next element is an option instead of unconditionally taking it as the
1994 *** An error is now thrown for `--opt=val' when the option description
1995 does not specify `(value #t)' or `(value optional)'. This condition used to
1996 be accepted w/o error, contrary to the documentation.
1998 *** The error message for unrecognized options is now more informative.
1999 It used to be "not a record", an artifact of the implementation.
2001 *** The error message for `--opt' terminating the arg list (no value), when
2002 `(value #t)' is specified, is now more informative. It used to be "not enough
2005 *** "Clumped" single-char args now preserve trailing string, use it as arg.
2006 The expansion used to be like so:
2008 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "--xyz")
2010 Note that the "5d" is dropped. Now it is like so:
2012 ("-abc5d" "--xyz") => ("-a" "-b" "-c" "5d" "--xyz")
2014 This enables single-char options to have adjoining arguments as long as their
2015 constituent characters are not potential single-char options.
2017 ** (ice-9 session) procedure `arity' now works with (ice-9 optargs) `lambda*'
2019 The `lambda*' and derivative forms in (ice-9 optargs) now set a procedure
2020 property `arglist', which can be retrieved by `arity'. The result is that
2021 `arity' can give more detailed information than before:
2025 guile> (use-modules (ice-9 optargs))
2026 guile> (define* (foo #:optional a b c) a)
2028 0 or more arguments in `lambda*:G0'.
2033 3 optional arguments: `a', `b' and `c'.
2034 guile> (define* (bar a b #:key c d #:allow-other-keys) a)
2036 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 2 keyword arguments: `c'
2037 and `d', other keywords allowed.
2038 guile> (define* (baz a b #:optional c #:rest r) a)
2040 2 required arguments: `a' and `b', 1 optional argument: `c',
2043 * Changes to the C interface
2045 ** Types have been renamed from scm_*_t to scm_t_*.
2047 This has been done for POSIX sake. It reserves identifiers ending
2048 with "_t". What a concept.
2050 The old names are still available with status `deprecated'.
2052 ** scm_t_bits (former scm_bits_t) is now a unsigned type.
2054 ** Deprecated features have been removed.
2058 SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP SCM_ICHRP, SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR
2059 SCM_SETJMPBUF SCM_NSTRINGP SCM_NRWSTRINGP SCM_NVECTORP SCM_DOUBLE_CELLP
2061 *** C Functions removed
2063 scm_sysmissing scm_tag scm_tc16_flo scm_tc_flo
2064 scm_fseek - replaced by scm_seek.
2065 gc-thunk - replaced by after-gc-hook.
2066 gh_int2scmb - replaced by gh_bool2scm.
2067 scm_tc_dblr - replaced by scm_tc16_real.
2068 scm_tc_dblc - replaced by scm_tc16_complex.
2069 scm_list_star - replaced by scm_cons_star.
2071 ** Deprecated: scm_makfromstr
2073 Use scm_mem2string instead.
2075 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
2077 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
2079 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
2080 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
2082 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
2084 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
2087 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
2089 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
2091 ** New functions: scm_call_0, scm_call_1, scm_call_2, scm_call_3
2093 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments. See "Fly
2094 Evaluation" in the manual.
2096 ** New functions: scm_apply_0, scm_apply_1, scm_apply_2, scm_apply_3
2098 Call a procedure with the indicated number of arguments and a list of
2099 further arguments. See "Fly Evaluation" in the manual.
2101 ** New functions: scm_list_1, scm_list_2, scm_list_3, scm_list_4, scm_list_5
2103 Create a list of the given number of elements. See "List
2104 Constructors" in the manual.
2106 ** Renamed function: scm_listify has been replaced by scm_list_n.
2108 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_LIST0, SCM_LIST1, SCM_LIST2, SCM_LIST3, SCM_LIST4,
2109 SCM_LIST5, SCM_LIST6, SCM_LIST7, SCM_LIST8, SCM_LIST9.
2111 Use functions scm_list_N instead.
2113 ** New function: scm_c_read (SCM port, void *buffer, scm_sizet size)
2115 Used by an application to read arbitrary number of bytes from a port.
2116 Same semantics as libc read, except that scm_c_read only returns less
2117 than SIZE bytes if at end-of-file.
2119 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2121 ** New function: scm_c_write (SCM port, const void *ptr, scm_sizet size)
2123 Used by an application to write arbitrary number of bytes to an SCM
2124 port. Similar semantics as libc write. However, unlike libc
2125 write, scm_c_write writes the requested number of bytes and has no
2128 Warning: Doesn't update port line and column counts!
2130 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
2132 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
2133 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
2135 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
2137 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
2138 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
2139 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
2140 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
2142 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
2143 scm_primitive_property_ref
2144 scm_primitive_property_set_x
2145 scm_primitive_property_del_x
2147 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
2148 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
2150 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
2152 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
2153 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
2154 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
2155 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
2157 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
2159 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
2160 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
2161 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
2162 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
2163 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
2164 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
2165 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
2167 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
2168 scm_remember_upto_here
2170 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
2172 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
2174 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
2175 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
2177 ** New function: scm_allocate_string
2179 This function replaces the function scm_makstr.
2181 ** Deprecated function: scm_makstr
2183 Use the new function scm_allocate_string instead.
2185 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
2187 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
2188 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
2189 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
2190 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
2191 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
2192 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
2194 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
2196 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2198 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
2199 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2200 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
2202 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
2204 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
2205 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
2206 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
2208 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
2210 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
2211 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
2214 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
2217 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
2218 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
2221 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2223 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
2225 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
2227 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2229 ** New macros: SCM_DIR_OPEN_P, SCM_DIR_FLAG_OPEN
2231 For directory objects, use these instead of SCM_OPDIRP and SCM_OPN.
2233 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
2234 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
2235 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
2236 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
2237 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
2238 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
2239 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
2240 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
2241 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
2242 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
2243 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC,
2244 SCM_OPDIRP, SCM_VALIDATE_OPDIR, SCM_WTA, RETURN_SCM_WTA, SCM_CONST_LONG,
2245 SCM_WNA, SCM_FUNC_NAME, SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_COPY,
2246 SCM_VALIDATE_NUMBER_DEF_COPY, SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP, SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP,
2247 SCM_SETAND_CDR, SCM_SETOR_CDR, SCM_SETAND_CAR, SCM_SETOR_CAR
2249 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
2250 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
2251 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
2252 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
2253 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
2254 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
2255 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
2256 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
2257 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
2258 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
2259 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
2260 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
2261 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
2262 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
2263 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
2264 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
2265 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
2266 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
2267 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
2268 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
2269 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
2270 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
2271 Use SCM_DIR_OPEN_P instead of SCM_OPDIRP.
2272 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of SCM_WTA.
2273 Use SCM_MISC_ERROR or SCM_WRONG_TYPE_ARG instead of RETURN_SCM_WTA.
2274 Use SCM_VCELL_INIT instead of SCM_CONST_LONG.
2275 Use SCM_WRONG_NUM_ARGS instead of SCM_WNA.
2276 Use SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_CONSP.
2277 Use !SCM_CONSP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_NCONSP.
2279 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
2281 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
2283 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
2284 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
2286 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
2288 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
2290 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
2292 Use scm_string_hash instead.
2294 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
2296 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
2298 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
2300 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
2302 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
2305 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
2306 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
2308 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
2310 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
2312 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
2314 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
2316 ** Deprecated function: scm_strprint_obj
2318 Use scm_object_to_string instead.
2320 ** Deprecated function: scm_wta
2322 Use scm_wrong_type_arg, or another appropriate error signalling function
2325 ** Explicit support for obarrays has been deprecated.
2327 Use `scm_str2symbol' and the generic hashtable functions instead.
2329 ** The concept of `vcells' has been deprecated.
2331 The data type `variable' is now used exclusively. `Vcells' have been
2332 a low-level concept so you are likely not affected by this change.
2334 *** Deprecated functions: scm_sym2vcell, scm_sysintern,
2335 scm_sysintern0, scm_symbol_value0, scm_intern, scm_intern0.
2337 Use scm_c_define or scm_c_lookup instead, as appropriate.
2339 *** New functions: scm_c_module_lookup, scm_c_lookup,
2340 scm_c_module_define, scm_c_define, scm_module_lookup, scm_lookup,
2341 scm_module_define, scm_define.
2343 These functions work with variables instead of with vcells.
2345 ** New functions for creating and defining `subr's and `gsubr's.
2347 The new functions more clearly distinguish between creating a subr (or
2348 gsubr) object and adding it to the current module.
2350 These new functions are available: scm_c_make_subr, scm_c_define_subr,
2351 scm_c_make_subr_with_generic, scm_c_define_subr_with_generic,
2352 scm_c_make_gsubr, scm_c_define_gsubr, scm_c_make_gsubr_with_generic,
2353 scm_c_define_gsubr_with_generic.
2355 ** Deprecated functions: scm_make_subr, scm_make_subr_opt,
2356 scm_make_subr_with_generic, scm_make_gsubr,
2357 scm_make_gsubr_with_generic.
2359 Use the new ones from above instead.
2361 ** C interface to the module system has changed.
2363 While we suggest that you avoid as many explicit module system
2364 operations from C as possible for the time being, the C interface has
2365 been made more similar to the high-level Scheme module system.
2367 *** New functions: scm_c_define_module, scm_c_use_module,
2368 scm_c_export, scm_c_resolve_module.
2370 They mostly work like their Scheme namesakes. scm_c_define_module
2371 takes a function that is called a context where the new module is
2374 *** Deprecated functions: scm_the_root_module, scm_make_module,
2375 scm_ensure_user_module, scm_load_scheme_module.
2377 Use the new functions instead.
2379 ** Renamed function: scm_internal_with_fluids becomes
2382 scm_internal_with_fluids is available as a deprecated function.
2384 ** New function: scm_c_with_fluid.
2386 Just like scm_c_with_fluids, but takes one fluid and one value instead
2389 ** Deprecated typedefs: long_long, ulong_long.
2391 They are of questionable utility and they pollute the global
2394 ** Deprecated typedef: scm_sizet
2396 It is of questionable utility now that Guile requires ANSI C, and is
2399 ** Deprecated typedefs: scm_port_rw_active, scm_port,
2400 scm_ptob_descriptor, scm_debug_info, scm_debug_frame, scm_fport,
2401 scm_option, scm_rstate, scm_rng, scm_array, scm_array_dim.
2403 Made more compliant with the naming policy by adding a _t at the end.
2405 ** Deprecated functions: scm_mkbig, scm_big2num, scm_adjbig,
2406 scm_normbig, scm_copybig, scm_2ulong2big, scm_dbl2big, scm_big2dbl
2408 With the exception of the mysterious scm_2ulong2big, they are still
2409 available under new names (scm_i_mkbig etc). These functions are not
2410 intended to be used in user code. You should avoid dealing with
2411 bignums directly, and should deal with numbers in general (which can
2414 ** Change in behavior: scm_num2long, scm_num2ulong
2416 The scm_num2[u]long functions don't any longer accept an inexact
2417 argument. This change in behavior is motivated by concordance with
2418 R5RS: It is more common that a primitive doesn't want to accept an
2419 inexact for an exact.
2421 ** New functions: scm_short2num, scm_ushort2num, scm_int2num,
2422 scm_uint2num, scm_size2num, scm_ptrdiff2num, scm_num2short,
2423 scm_num2ushort, scm_num2int, scm_num2uint, scm_num2ptrdiff,
2426 These are conversion functions between the various ANSI C integral
2427 types and Scheme numbers. NOTE: The scm_num2xxx functions don't
2428 accept an inexact argument.
2430 ** New functions: scm_float2num, scm_double2num,
2431 scm_num2float, scm_num2double.
2433 These are conversion functions between the two ANSI C float types and
2436 ** New number validation macros:
2437 SCM_NUM2{SIZE,PTRDIFF,SHORT,USHORT,INT,UINT}[_DEF]
2441 ** New functions: scm_gc_protect_object, scm_gc_unprotect_object
2443 These are just nicer-named old scm_protect_object and
2444 scm_unprotect_object.
2446 ** Deprecated functions: scm_protect_object, scm_unprotect_object
2448 ** New functions: scm_gc_[un]register_root, scm_gc_[un]register_roots
2450 These functions can be used to register pointers to locations that
2453 ** Deprecated function: scm_create_hook.
2455 Its sins are: misleading name, non-modularity and lack of general
2459 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
2461 * Changes to the distribution
2463 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
2465 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
2466 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
2467 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
2468 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
2469 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
2470 obtain these programs.
2471 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
2472 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
2474 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
2475 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
2476 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
2477 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
2478 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
2480 However, this approach means that minor differences between
2481 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
2482 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
2483 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
2487 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
2490 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
2491 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
2492 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
2493 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
2495 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
2497 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
2499 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
2500 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
2502 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
2503 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
2505 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
2506 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
2508 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
2509 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
2510 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
2511 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
2513 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
2515 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
2519 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
2520 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
2522 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
2524 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
2525 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
2527 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
2528 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
2529 number of objects of that kind.
2531 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
2533 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
2534 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
2535 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
2536 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
2537 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
2539 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
2541 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
2543 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
2545 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
2548 ** New module (ice-9 time)
2550 Provides a macro `time', which displays execution time of a given form.
2552 ** New module (ice-9 history)
2554 Loading this module enables value history in the repl.
2556 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2558 ** New command line option --debug
2560 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
2562 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
2564 ** New help facility
2566 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
2567 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
2568 (help 'NAME) gives documentation for NAME, even if it is not an object
2569 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
2570 (help (my module)) gives module commentary for `(my module)'
2571 (help) gives this text
2573 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
2574 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
2576 Examples: (help help)
2578 (help "output-string")
2580 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
2582 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
2584 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
2585 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
2588 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
2589 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
2590 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
2593 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
2594 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
2595 use absolute filenames when possible.
2597 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
2598 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
2599 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
2602 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
2604 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
2605 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
2606 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
2607 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
2609 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
2611 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
2613 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
2614 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
2615 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
2617 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
2618 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
2619 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
2621 (read-enable 'positions)
2622 (debug-enable 'debug)
2624 ** Backtraces in scripts
2626 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
2630 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
2632 at the top of the script.
2634 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
2635 The second enables backtraces.)
2637 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
2639 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
2640 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
2641 substantially faster than before.
2643 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
2644 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
2646 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
2647 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
2649 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
2651 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
2652 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
2653 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
2655 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
2656 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
2657 when this hook is run in the future.
2659 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
2660 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
2662 ** Improvements to garbage collector
2664 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
2665 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
2668 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
2669 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
2670 more and more memory for certain programs.)
2672 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
2673 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
2675 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
2676 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
2678 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
2679 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
2680 in order not to need further allocation.)
2682 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
2685 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
2686 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
2687 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
2688 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
2690 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
2692 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
2695 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
2697 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
2700 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
2701 GC in percent of total heap size
2704 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
2705 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
2707 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
2709 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
2710 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
2712 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
2714 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
2715 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
2717 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
2719 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
2720 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
2724 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
2725 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
2727 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
2729 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2731 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
2733 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
2735 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
2737 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
2738 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
2740 (simple-format port message . args)
2741 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
2742 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
2743 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
2744 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
2745 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
2746 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
2747 Does not add a trailing newline."
2749 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
2751 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
2752 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
2754 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
2755 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
2757 ** Deprecated: list*
2759 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
2761 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
2763 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
2764 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
2766 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
2767 is returned as result.
2769 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
2771 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
2773 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
2775 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
2776 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
2779 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
2781 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
2783 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
2784 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
2786 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2788 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
2790 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
2792 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2794 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
2796 Thanks to Greg Badros!
2798 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2800 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
2801 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
2802 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
2804 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
2807 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
2809 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
2810 the readability of argument checking.
2812 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
2814 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
2816 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
2818 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
2819 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
2820 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
2821 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
2822 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
2823 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
2824 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
2826 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
2828 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
2830 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
2831 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
2833 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
2835 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
2836 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
2839 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
2841 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
2842 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
2843 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
2845 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
2846 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
2847 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
2849 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
2850 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
2851 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
2852 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
2853 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
2854 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
2855 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
2857 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
2858 scm_end_input (object);
2859 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
2860 ptob->flush (object);
2862 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
2863 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
2866 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
2868 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
2870 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
2871 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
2872 removed in a future version.
2874 ** The format of error message strings has changed
2876 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
2877 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
2878 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
2879 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
2881 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
2882 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
2884 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
2887 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
2889 in your configure.in.
2891 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
2896 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
2902 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
2904 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
2908 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
2909 (define make-message string-append)
2911 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
2913 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
2917 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
2922 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
2926 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
2928 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
2929 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
2931 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
2933 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
2934 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
2935 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
2936 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
2937 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
2938 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
2940 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
2941 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
2942 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
2944 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
2945 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
2946 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
2949 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
2950 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
2951 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
2952 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
2953 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
2955 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
2956 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
2957 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
2958 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
2959 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
2960 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
2961 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
2963 Destructors are not yet implemented.
2965 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
2966 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
2967 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
2969 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
2970 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
2971 KEY in the calling thread.
2973 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
2974 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
2975 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
2976 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
2977 associated with the key.
2979 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
2981 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
2982 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
2984 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
2986 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
2987 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
2988 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
2990 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
2992 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
2993 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
2995 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
2997 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
2999 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
3000 returned is undefined.
3002 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
3003 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
3004 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
3006 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
3007 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
3008 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
3010 ** New C level GC hooks
3012 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
3014 scm_before_gc_c_hook
3017 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
3018 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
3019 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
3021 scm_before_mark_c_hook
3022 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
3023 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
3025 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
3026 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
3029 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
3031 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
3032 allocation parameters
3034 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
3035 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
3036 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
3040 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
3041 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
3042 scm_default_max_segment_size
3044 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
3046 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
3047 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
3049 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
3051 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
3052 object and count on the object being protected until
3053 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
3055 The functions also have better time complexity.
3057 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
3058 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
3059 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
3060 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
3061 are no longer needed.
3063 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
3065 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
3066 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
3067 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
3068 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
3070 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
3072 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
3074 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
3076 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
3077 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
3078 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
3079 until this issue has been settled.
3081 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
3083 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
3085 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
3088 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
3090 * Changes to system call interfaces:
3092 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
3093 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
3094 descriptors were checked.
3096 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
3097 atomically written to a pipe.
3099 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
3100 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
3101 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
3102 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
3103 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
3104 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
3105 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
3108 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
3109 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
3110 is changed without calling tzset.
3112 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
3114 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
3115 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
3116 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
3118 (define write-network-long
3119 (lambda (value port)
3120 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3121 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
3122 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
3124 (define read-network-long
3126 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
3127 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
3128 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
3130 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
3131 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
3133 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
3134 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
3135 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
3136 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
3138 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
3139 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
3140 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
3141 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
3145 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
3147 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3151 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
3152 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
3153 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
3159 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
3160 for a description of available commands.
3162 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
3163 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
3164 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
3166 (debug-enable 'backwards)
3168 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
3169 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
3171 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
3173 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
3175 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
3176 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
3177 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
3178 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
3179 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
3180 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
3183 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
3185 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
3186 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
3187 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
3188 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
3190 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
3191 the file and should not be affected by this change.
3193 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
3195 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3197 ** Readline support has changed again.
3199 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
3200 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
3201 to activate readline is now
3203 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
3206 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
3208 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
3209 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
3210 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
3213 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
3214 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
3215 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
3218 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
3219 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
3220 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
3221 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
3222 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
3223 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
3225 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
3226 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
3228 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
3230 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
3231 object it receives is the same string passed to
3232 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
3233 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
3234 string, not the suffix.
3236 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
3237 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
3238 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
3240 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
3242 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
3243 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
3244 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
3245 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
3248 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3250 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
3252 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
3253 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
3254 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
3255 appear from left to right.
3257 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
3260 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
3262 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
3263 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
3265 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
3269 *** New function: hook? OBJ
3271 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
3273 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
3275 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
3276 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
3277 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
3279 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
3281 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
3283 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
3285 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
3288 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
3290 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
3291 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
3292 mentioning it here anyway.
3294 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
3296 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
3297 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
3298 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
3299 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
3302 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
3304 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
3306 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
3308 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
3309 otherwise return #f.
3311 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
3313 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
3314 returned by `opendir'.
3316 ** New function: using-readline?
3318 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
3320 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3322 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
3323 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3325 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3327 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
3329 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
3330 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
3331 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
3333 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
3335 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
3336 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
3338 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
3340 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
3341 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
3342 documentation slots are not yet used.
3344 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
3346 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
3347 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
3348 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
3353 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
3354 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
3355 (string-append x y))
3357 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
3358 can also be used for concatenating strings.
3360 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
3361 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
3362 be made in a clean way.]
3364 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
3366 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3368 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
3370 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
3371 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
3373 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3375 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
3377 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3379 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3381 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
3382 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
3383 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
3384 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
3387 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3389 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
3391 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
3393 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
3395 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
3396 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
3398 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
3400 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
3402 Evaluates the body of a special form.
3404 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
3406 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
3407 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
3408 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
3409 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
3410 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
3411 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
3413 This should not make any difference for most users.
3415 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
3417 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
3418 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
3420 *** New functions for applying generic functions
3422 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
3423 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
3424 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
3425 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
3426 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
3428 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
3430 It is now replaced by:
3432 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
3434 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
3435 binds a variable named NAME to it.
3437 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
3439 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
3440 This might change when we get the new module system.
3442 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
3446 Changes since Guile 1.3:
3448 * Changes to mailing lists
3450 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
3452 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
3455 * Changes to the distribution
3457 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
3459 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
3460 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
3461 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
3462 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
3463 you explicitly specify it.
3465 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
3466 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
3467 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
3468 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
3469 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
3472 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
3473 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
3474 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
3475 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
3477 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
3478 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
3479 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
3482 You can activate the readline support by issuing
3484 (use-modules (readline-activator))
3487 from your ".guile" file, for example.
3489 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3491 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
3492 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
3493 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
3494 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
3496 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
3497 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
3500 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3502 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
3503 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
3504 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
3505 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
3506 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
3507 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
3508 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
3509 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
3521 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
3522 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
3523 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
3524 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
3525 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
3530 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
3531 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
3539 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
3544 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
3545 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
3548 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
3549 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
3550 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
3551 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
3553 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
3555 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
3557 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
3558 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
3560 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
3562 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
3564 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
3565 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
3567 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
3570 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
3572 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
3574 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
3576 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
3578 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
3580 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
3582 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
3583 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
3584 when the hook was created.
3586 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
3587 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
3588 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
3589 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
3590 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
3591 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
3592 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
3593 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
3594 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
3596 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
3597 the dlopen family of functions.
3599 ** New function `provided?'
3601 - Function: provided? FEATURE
3602 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
3603 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
3604 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
3606 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
3608 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
3609 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
3610 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
3611 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3614 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
3615 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
3616 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
3617 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
3619 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
3620 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
3621 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
3624 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
3625 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
3626 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
3627 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
3628 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
3629 but with the flag set.
3631 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
3633 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
3634 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
3636 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
3637 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
3638 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
3639 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
3640 available Scheme format implementations.
3642 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
3643 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
3644 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
3645 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
3646 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
3647 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
3648 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
3649 output is to the current error port if available by the
3650 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
3653 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
3654 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
3655 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
3656 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
3657 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
3658 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
3659 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
3660 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
3662 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
3663 be executed at a time.
3666 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
3668 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
3669 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
3670 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
3672 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
3673 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
3674 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
3675 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
3676 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
3677 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
3678 general form of a directive is:
3680 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
3682 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
3684 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3686 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
3687 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
3688 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
3691 Any (print as `display' does).
3695 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
3699 S-expression (print as `write' does).
3703 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
3709 print number sign always.
3712 print comma separated.
3714 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
3720 print number sign always.
3723 print comma separated.
3725 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
3731 print number sign always.
3734 print comma separated.
3736 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
3742 print number sign always.
3745 print comma separated.
3747 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
3752 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
3756 print a number as a Roman numeral.
3759 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
3762 print a number as an ordinal English number.
3765 print a number as a cardinal English number.
3770 prints `y' and `ies'.
3773 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3776 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
3781 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
3785 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
3788 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
3789 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
3791 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3794 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
3795 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
3797 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3800 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
3802 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
3804 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3807 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
3809 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
3811 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
3814 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
3817 The sign appears before the padding.
3825 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
3827 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
3832 print N page separators.
3842 newline is ignored, white space left.
3845 newline is left, white space ignored.
3850 relative tabulation.
3856 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
3858 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
3861 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
3863 converts by `string-capitalize'.
3866 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
3869 converts by `string-upcase'.
3872 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
3874 jumps N arguments forward.
3877 jumps 1 argument backward.
3880 jumps N arguments backward.
3883 jumps to the 0th argument.
3886 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
3888 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
3889 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
3891 take argument from N.
3894 true test conditional.
3897 if-else-then conditional.
3903 default clause follows.
3906 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
3908 at most N iterations.
3911 args from next arg (a list of lists).
3914 args from the rest of arguments.
3917 args from the rest args (lists).
3928 aborts if N <= M <= K
3930 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
3933 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3936 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
3942 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
3944 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
3946 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
3947 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
3948 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
3949 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
3950 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
3951 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
3955 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
3959 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
3965 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
3968 Print a `#\space' character
3970 print N `#\space' characters.
3973 Print a `#\tab' character
3975 print N `#\tab' characters.
3978 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
3979 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
3980 must be a positive decimal number.
3983 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3984 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3985 be processed by `read'.
3988 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
3989 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
3990 be processed by `read'.
3993 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
3996 prints format version.
3999 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
4000 and format it accordingly.
4002 *** Configuration Variables
4004 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
4005 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
4006 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
4007 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
4010 format:symbol-case-conv
4011 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
4012 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
4013 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
4014 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
4015 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
4017 format:iobj-case-conv
4018 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
4019 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
4022 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
4025 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
4031 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
4032 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
4033 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
4034 `format' padding style.
4037 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
4038 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
4039 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
4040 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
4044 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
4045 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
4046 directive parameters or modifiers)).
4049 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
4050 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
4051 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
4052 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
4053 parameters or modifiers)).
4056 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
4058 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
4060 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
4061 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
4063 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
4064 string-downcase! functions.
4066 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
4067 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
4069 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
4072 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
4075 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
4076 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
4078 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
4080 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
4081 the symbol had be read by `read'.
4083 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
4084 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
4085 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
4086 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
4087 would if STRING were input.
4089 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
4091 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
4092 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
4093 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
4094 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
4097 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
4099 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
4100 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
4103 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
4105 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
4106 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
4108 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
4109 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
4111 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
4112 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
4113 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
4114 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
4116 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
4117 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
4119 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
4120 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
4121 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
4123 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
4124 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
4126 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
4127 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
4128 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
4129 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
4130 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
4132 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
4133 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
4134 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
4135 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
4136 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
4137 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
4139 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
4140 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
4141 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
4144 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
4145 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
4146 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
4147 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
4148 the following grammar:
4149 ((apples (single-char #\a))
4150 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
4151 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
4152 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
4153 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
4154 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
4155 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
4156 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
4157 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
4158 last option in its combination)
4160 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
4161 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
4162 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
4163 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
4165 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
4166 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
4167 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
4169 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4170 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
4171 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
4173 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
4174 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
4175 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
4176 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
4177 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
4178 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
4179 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
4180 ordinary argument strings.
4182 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
4183 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
4184 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
4185 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
4187 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
4188 as a list, associated with the empty list.
4190 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
4191 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
4192 - a required option is omitted
4193 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
4194 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
4195 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
4196 - an option predicate fails
4201 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
4204 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
4205 (verbose (required? #f)
4208 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
4209 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
4210 (predicate ,string?))))
4212 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
4213 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4215 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
4216 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
4217 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
4218 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
4221 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
4223 It will be removed in a few releases.
4225 ** New syntax: lambda*
4226 ** New syntax: define*
4227 ** New syntax: define*-public
4228 ** New syntax: defmacro*
4229 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
4230 Guile now supports optional arguments.
4232 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
4233 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
4234 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
4235 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
4236 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
4238 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
4239 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
4240 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
4242 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
4244 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
4245 and examples for `lambda*':
4248 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
4250 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
4251 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
4252 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
4253 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
4254 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
4255 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
4256 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
4257 can be checked with the bound? macro.
4259 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
4261 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
4262 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
4263 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
4264 are given as keywords are bound to values.
4266 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
4267 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
4268 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
4269 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
4270 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
4271 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
4272 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
4273 and until the procedure is called.
4275 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
4277 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
4278 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
4279 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
4280 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
4281 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
4282 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
4283 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
4284 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
4285 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
4286 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
4288 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
4289 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
4290 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
4291 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
4294 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
4296 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
4297 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
4298 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
4299 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
4301 ** New syntax: and-let*
4302 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
4304 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
4305 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
4306 (<variable> <expression>)
4309 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
4310 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
4311 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
4314 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
4315 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
4316 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
4317 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
4318 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
4319 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
4320 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
4322 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
4323 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
4324 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
4325 shadow earlier bindings.
4327 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
4329 ** New sorting functions
4331 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
4332 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
4333 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
4334 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
4336 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
4337 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
4340 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4341 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
4342 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
4344 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
4345 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
4346 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
4347 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
4349 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
4350 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
4351 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
4352 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
4353 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
4356 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4357 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
4358 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
4359 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
4360 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
4361 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
4363 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
4364 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
4365 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
4367 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
4368 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
4369 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
4372 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
4373 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
4374 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
4376 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
4377 Added for compatibility with scsh.
4379 ** New built-in random number support
4381 *** New function: random N [STATE]
4382 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
4383 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
4384 returned have a uniform distribution.
4386 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
4387 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
4388 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
4389 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
4390 effect of the `random' operation.
4392 *** New variable: *random-state*
4393 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
4394 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
4395 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
4396 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
4397 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
4400 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
4401 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4402 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4403 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
4404 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
4406 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
4407 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
4408 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
4409 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
4410 initialized using SEED.
4412 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
4413 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
4414 range between 0 and 1.
4416 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4417 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
4418 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
4419 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
4420 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
4421 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
4422 or a uniform vector of doubles.
4424 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
4425 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
4426 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
4427 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
4428 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
4429 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4431 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
4432 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
4433 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
4434 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
4436 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
4437 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
4438 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
4439 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
4441 *** New function: random:exp STATE
4442 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
4443 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
4445 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
4447 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
4450 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
4451 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
4454 ** New function: make-guardian
4455 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
4456 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
4457 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
4458 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
4459 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
4461 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
4462 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
4463 one object if at all.
4465 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
4466 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
4467 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
4469 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
4470 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
4471 read again in last-in first-out order.
4473 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
4474 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
4476 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
4478 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
4479 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
4480 file position is used.
4482 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
4483 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
4484 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
4486 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
4487 redefined using seek.
4489 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
4490 size is not supplied.
4492 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
4493 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
4495 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
4496 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
4498 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
4500 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
4501 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
4502 and returns the contents as a single string.
4504 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
4505 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
4506 lists in serial order.
4508 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
4509 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
4510 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
4512 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
4513 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
4514 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
4515 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
4517 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
4518 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
4519 and #f if an error occured.
4521 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
4523 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
4524 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
4525 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
4526 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
4528 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
4530 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
4533 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
4535 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
4538 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4542 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
4543 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
4545 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
4546 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
4550 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4552 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
4554 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
4555 binds a variable named NAME to it.
4557 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
4559 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
4560 might change when we get the new module system.
4562 ** The smob interface
4564 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
4565 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
4567 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
4569 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
4573 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
4574 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
4575 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
4576 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
4577 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
4578 will be freed by the default free function.
4580 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4581 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
4582 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4583 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4585 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
4586 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
4587 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4588 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4590 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
4592 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
4593 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
4597 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
4598 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4599 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4601 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
4602 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
4603 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
4604 `scm_make_smob_type'.
4606 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
4607 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
4608 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
4610 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
4611 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
4612 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
4613 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
4615 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
4616 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
4617 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
4619 *** scm_newptob has been removed
4623 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
4625 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
4626 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
4627 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
4629 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
4630 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
4631 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
4633 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
4634 a string port's buffer.
4636 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
4637 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
4638 function pointers which together define the current random number
4639 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
4640 number library functions.
4642 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
4645 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
4646 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
4649 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
4650 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4652 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
4653 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
4655 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
4656 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
4659 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
4660 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
4661 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
4662 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
4664 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
4665 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
4666 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
4667 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
4668 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
4669 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
4670 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
4672 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
4673 by libguile and the application.
4675 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4676 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
4677 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
4678 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
4680 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
4681 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
4683 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
4684 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
4685 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
4687 ** Random number library functions
4688 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
4689 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
4690 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
4692 The default random state is stored in:
4694 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
4695 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
4696 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
4701 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
4703 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
4704 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
4705 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
4706 isn't a random state.
4708 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
4709 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
4711 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
4712 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
4713 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
4714 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
4716 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4717 Return 32 random bits.
4719 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4720 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
4722 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4723 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
4725 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
4726 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
4728 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
4729 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4731 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
4732 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
4733 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
4737 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
4739 * Changes to the distribution
4741 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
4742 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
4743 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
4746 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
4747 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
4748 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
4750 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
4751 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
4752 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
4753 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
4756 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
4757 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
4758 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
4760 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
4762 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
4764 *** Function: batch-mode?
4766 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
4769 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
4771 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
4772 case has not been implemented.
4774 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
4775 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
4776 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
4779 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
4780 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
4782 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
4784 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4786 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
4788 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
4789 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
4792 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
4793 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
4794 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
4795 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
4798 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
4800 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
4801 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
4802 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
4803 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
4804 find those libraries.
4806 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
4807 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
4810 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
4812 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
4813 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
4814 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
4815 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
4817 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
4818 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
4819 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
4823 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
4825 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
4826 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
4827 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
4830 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
4831 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
4832 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
4833 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
4835 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
4836 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
4839 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
4840 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
4841 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
4842 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
4843 compiler where to find the libraries.
4845 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
4846 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
4847 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
4849 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
4850 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
4851 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
4852 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
4853 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
4857 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
4859 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
4860 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
4861 internationalization support.
4863 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
4864 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
4865 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
4866 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
4867 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
4869 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
4870 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
4871 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
4872 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
4873 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
4875 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
4876 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
4877 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
4878 any GNU mirror site.
4880 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
4882 ** New function: add-history STRING
4883 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
4884 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
4885 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
4887 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
4889 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
4890 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
4891 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
4894 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
4895 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
4896 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
4898 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
4900 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
4903 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
4904 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
4907 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
4908 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
4909 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
4910 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
4911 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
4912 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
4914 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
4915 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
4916 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
4917 of the form mentioned above.
4919 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
4920 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
4921 returned in the special `rest' list.
4923 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
4924 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
4926 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
4928 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
4930 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
4932 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
4933 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
4934 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
4935 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
4936 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
4937 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
4938 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
4939 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
4942 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
4944 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
4946 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
4947 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
4950 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
4951 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
4952 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
4956 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
4957 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
4958 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
4959 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
4960 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
4961 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
4962 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
4963 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
4966 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
4968 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
4969 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
4970 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
4972 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
4974 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
4975 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
4977 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
4978 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
4979 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
4981 Why do we have this function?
4982 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
4983 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
4984 primitive, and display it differently, and
4985 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
4986 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
4989 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
4990 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
4993 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
4994 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
4995 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
4996 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
4998 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
4999 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
5002 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
5003 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
5005 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
5007 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
5008 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
5009 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
5010 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
5011 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
5012 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
5013 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
5016 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
5018 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
5019 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
5021 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
5022 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
5023 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
5024 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
5025 properly continue the print chain.
5027 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
5028 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
5029 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
5030 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
5031 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
5032 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
5033 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
5034 print-state, it is simply ignored.
5036 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
5037 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
5038 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
5039 safest to not check for these pairs.
5041 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
5042 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
5043 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
5044 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
5046 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
5048 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
5049 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
5051 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
5053 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
5055 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
5056 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
5057 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
5059 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
5060 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
5061 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
5063 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
5064 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
5065 the following functions and macros:
5067 Function: make-fluid
5069 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
5070 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
5071 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
5072 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
5073 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
5075 Function: fluid? OBJ
5077 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
5079 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
5080 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
5082 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
5083 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
5085 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
5087 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
5088 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
5089 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
5090 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
5091 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
5092 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
5093 modified by `with-fluids*'.
5095 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
5097 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
5098 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
5099 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
5100 should evaluate to a fluid.
5102 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
5104 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
5105 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
5106 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
5107 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
5108 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
5110 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
5113 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
5115 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
5117 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
5119 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
5122 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
5123 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
5124 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
5125 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
5126 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
5129 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
5130 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
5131 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
5133 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
5134 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
5135 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
5137 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
5138 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
5139 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5140 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
5142 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
5143 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
5144 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
5145 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
5147 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
5148 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
5149 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
5150 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
5152 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
5153 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
5154 their revealed counts set to zero.
5156 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5157 Returns an integer file descriptor.
5159 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5160 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
5162 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5163 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
5165 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
5166 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
5167 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
5169 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
5170 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
5171 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
5173 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
5174 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
5175 default environment inherited by child processes.
5177 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
5178 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
5179 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
5181 The return value is unspecified.
5183 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
5184 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
5185 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
5186 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
5187 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
5189 The return value is unspecified.
5191 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
5192 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
5200 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
5201 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
5204 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
5207 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
5208 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
5209 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
5211 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
5212 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
5213 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
5214 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
5217 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
5218 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
5220 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
5221 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
5222 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
5223 the `environ' procedure.
5225 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
5226 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
5229 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
5230 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
5232 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
5233 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
5234 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
5235 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
5237 *** procedure: times
5238 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
5239 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
5240 return a selected component:
5243 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
5247 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
5250 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
5254 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
5255 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
5259 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
5260 terminated child processes.
5262 ** Removed: list-length
5263 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
5264 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
5266 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
5268 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
5270 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
5272 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
5273 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
5274 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
5275 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
5277 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
5278 extra complexity it introduces.
5280 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
5281 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
5283 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
5284 variable to any non-empty value.
5286 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
5287 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
5289 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5291 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
5292 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
5294 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
5296 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
5297 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
5299 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
5301 ** vector handling routines
5303 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
5304 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
5305 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
5306 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
5307 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
5309 ** pair and list routines
5311 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
5314 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
5316 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
5319 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5321 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
5323 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
5324 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
5325 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
5326 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
5327 site-specific initialization code.
5329 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
5330 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
5331 initialization processes.
5333 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
5334 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
5335 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
5336 initialized properly.
5338 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
5339 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
5340 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
5342 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
5343 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
5344 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
5345 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
5346 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
5348 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
5350 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
5351 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
5352 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
5353 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
5354 objects the smob refers to get marked.
5356 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
5357 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
5358 which look like this:
5361 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
5363 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
5364 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
5367 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
5368 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
5371 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
5373 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
5374 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
5375 you will need to change your functions slightly.
5377 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
5378 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
5379 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
5380 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
5381 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
5383 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
5384 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
5386 int (*free) (SCM port);
5387 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
5388 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
5389 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
5393 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
5394 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
5395 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
5397 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
5400 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
5401 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
5402 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
5404 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
5405 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
5406 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
5409 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
5413 struct timeval *timeout);
5415 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
5416 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
5417 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
5418 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
5419 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
5420 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
5422 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
5423 scm_catch_body_t body,
5425 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5428 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
5429 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
5430 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
5431 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
5432 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
5433 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
5435 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
5437 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
5440 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
5441 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
5442 spawning threads from application C code.
5444 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
5445 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
5446 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
5447 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
5448 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
5449 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
5451 ** Removed functions:
5453 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
5454 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
5456 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
5458 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
5459 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
5461 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
5463 ** mbstrings are now removed
5465 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
5466 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
5468 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
5470 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
5471 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
5472 their new names and arguments:
5474 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
5475 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
5476 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
5477 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
5480 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
5482 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
5484 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
5487 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
5489 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
5490 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
5491 pass a #f arg to catch.
5493 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
5495 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
5496 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
5499 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
5500 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
5501 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
5502 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
5503 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
5504 reclaim its storage.
5506 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
5507 worrying that some other function you call will call
5508 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
5509 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
5510 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
5511 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
5514 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
5516 * Changes to the distribution
5518 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
5519 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
5522 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
5523 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
5525 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5526 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
5528 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
5530 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
5531 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
5532 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
5534 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
5536 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
5537 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
5538 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
5539 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
5540 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
5541 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
5543 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
5544 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
5545 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
5548 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
5549 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
5550 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
5551 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
5553 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
5554 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
5555 libraries to your link command:
5557 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
5558 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
5559 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
5560 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
5562 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
5563 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
5564 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
5566 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
5568 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
5569 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
5572 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
5574 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
5575 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
5576 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
5577 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
5578 searched is system dependent.
5580 (dynamic-object? VAL)
5582 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
5584 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
5586 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
5587 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
5589 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5591 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
5592 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
5593 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
5594 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
5595 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
5598 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
5600 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
5601 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
5602 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
5603 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
5604 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
5606 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
5608 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
5609 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
5611 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
5613 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
5614 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
5615 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
5618 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
5620 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
5621 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
5622 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
5623 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
5625 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
5626 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
5628 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
5630 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
5631 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
5633 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
5635 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
5636 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
5644 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
5646 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
5647 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
5648 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
5649 a more informative way.
5651 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
5652 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
5653 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
5654 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
5655 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
5656 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
5658 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
5659 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
5662 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
5663 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
5664 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
5667 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
5668 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
5669 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
5670 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
5671 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
5672 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
5674 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
5675 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
5676 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
5677 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
5680 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
5681 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
5682 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
5683 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
5684 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
5685 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
5687 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
5688 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
5689 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
5690 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
5691 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
5693 *** regexp functions
5695 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
5696 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
5697 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
5699 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
5700 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
5701 with SCSH regular expressions.
5703 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
5704 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
5705 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
5706 position of STR at which to begin matching.
5708 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
5709 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
5710 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
5711 `string-match' returns `#f'.
5713 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
5714 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
5715 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
5716 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
5717 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
5718 match strings against the compiled regexp.
5720 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
5721 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
5722 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
5723 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
5724 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
5726 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5728 **** Constant: regexp/extended
5729 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
5730 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
5731 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
5733 **** Constant: regexp/icase
5734 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
5735 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
5737 **** Constant: regexp/newline
5738 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
5740 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
5743 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
5744 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5745 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
5747 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
5748 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
5749 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
5751 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
5752 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
5753 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
5754 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
5755 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
5758 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
5760 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
5761 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
5762 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
5763 used when different portions of a string are passed to
5764 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
5765 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
5767 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
5768 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
5769 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
5771 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
5772 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
5775 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
5776 and replace them with the contents of another string.
5778 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
5779 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
5780 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
5781 may be one of the following arguments:
5783 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
5785 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
5787 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
5788 the regexp match is written.
5790 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
5791 following the regexp match is written.
5793 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
5794 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
5797 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
5798 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
5799 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
5800 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
5801 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
5802 which should be matched against this regular expression.
5804 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
5807 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
5808 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
5809 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
5810 written out to PORT.
5812 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
5813 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
5814 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
5815 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
5816 will return after processing a single match.
5818 *** Match Structures
5820 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
5821 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
5822 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
5823 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
5824 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
5825 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
5828 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
5829 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
5830 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
5831 information about the original target string that was matched against a
5832 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
5834 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
5835 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
5836 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
5838 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
5839 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
5840 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
5841 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
5842 number N did not match, return `#f'.
5844 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
5845 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
5847 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
5848 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
5850 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
5851 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
5853 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
5854 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
5856 **** Function: match:count MATCH
5857 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
5858 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
5859 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
5861 **** Function: match:string MATCH
5862 Return the original TARGET string.
5864 *** Backslash Escapes
5866 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
5867 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
5868 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
5869 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
5870 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
5871 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
5873 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
5874 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
5875 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
5876 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
5877 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
5878 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
5879 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
5880 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
5882 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
5883 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
5884 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
5885 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
5886 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
5887 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
5888 each match a single backslash in the target string.
5890 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
5891 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
5892 return the resulting string.
5894 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
5895 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
5896 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
5897 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
5898 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
5899 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
5900 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
5901 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
5902 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
5903 translated to the single character `*'.
5905 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
5906 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
5907 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
5908 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
5909 consecutive backslashes:
5911 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
5913 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
5914 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
5915 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
5917 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
5918 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
5919 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
5920 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
5921 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
5922 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
5924 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
5926 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
5927 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
5928 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
5929 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
5930 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
5931 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
5932 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
5933 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
5934 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
5935 cumbersome escape syntax.
5937 * Changes to the gh_ interface
5939 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5941 * Changes to system call interfaces:
5943 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
5946 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
5948 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
5950 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
5953 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
5954 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
5955 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
5956 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
5957 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
5959 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
5960 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
5961 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
5962 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
5963 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
5964 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
5965 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
5968 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
5969 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
5970 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
5973 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
5974 `force-output' on every port open for output.
5976 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
5977 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
5978 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
5979 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
5980 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
5981 installed, you can say:
5983 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
5986 * Changes to the scm_ interface
5988 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
5989 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
5990 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
5991 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
5992 new dynamic roots and threads.
5995 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
5997 * Changes to the distribution.
5999 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
6001 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
6002 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
6003 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
6004 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
6005 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
6006 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
6007 programming language. These are packaged together because the
6008 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
6010 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
6013 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
6014 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
6019 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
6021 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
6022 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
6024 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
6025 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
6026 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
6027 the (command-line) function.
6028 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
6029 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
6030 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
6032 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
6033 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
6034 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
6035 command line arguments
6036 -ds do -s script at this point
6037 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
6038 -h, --help display this help and exit
6039 -v, --version display version information and exit
6040 \ read arguments from following script lines
6042 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
6043 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
6045 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6048 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6052 (main (command-line))
6054 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
6056 ekko a speckled gecko
6058 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
6059 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
6060 following list of command-line arguments:
6062 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
6064 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
6065 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
6066 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
6067 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
6068 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6070 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
6072 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
6074 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
6075 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
6078 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
6079 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
6080 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
6081 SCSH) for circumventing them.
6083 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
6084 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
6085 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
6086 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
6088 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
6092 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
6096 If the user invokes this script as follows:
6098 ekko a speckled gecko
6100 Unix expands this into
6102 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
6104 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
6105 read from the second line of the script, producing:
6107 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6109 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
6110 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
6112 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
6113 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
6114 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
6115 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
6116 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
6117 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
6118 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
6119 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
6120 it only terminates the argument list.)
6121 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
6122 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
6123 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
6124 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
6125 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
6126 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
6127 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
6128 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
6130 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
6132 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
6133 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
6134 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
6135 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
6136 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
6138 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
6139 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
6140 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
6142 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
6144 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
6145 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
6146 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
6147 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
6150 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
6151 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
6152 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
6154 * Changes to Scheme functions
6156 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
6157 and disabled by default.
6159 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
6160 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
6161 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
6162 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
6164 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
6166 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
6168 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
6169 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
6171 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
6172 (read-set! keywords #f)
6174 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
6175 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
6176 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
6179 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
6180 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
6181 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
6184 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
6185 support for Scheme functions.
6187 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6188 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
6189 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
6190 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
6193 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
6194 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
6195 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
6198 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
6199 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
6200 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
6203 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
6204 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
6205 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
6206 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
6207 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
6208 display the result as a prompt.
6209 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
6211 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
6212 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
6213 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
6216 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
6217 procedure of zero arguments.
6219 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
6220 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
6221 argument is bound in the current module.
6223 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
6224 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
6225 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
6226 public bindings into the current module.
6228 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
6229 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
6231 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
6232 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
6234 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
6235 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
6237 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
6238 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
6240 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
6241 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
6243 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
6244 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
6245 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
6246 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
6247 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
6249 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
6250 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
6251 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
6252 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
6254 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
6257 ** Changes to I/O functions
6259 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
6260 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
6261 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
6263 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
6264 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
6265 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
6267 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
6268 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
6270 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
6271 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
6272 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
6273 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
6275 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
6277 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
6278 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
6280 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
6281 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
6282 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
6283 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
6284 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
6287 'trim omit delimiter from result
6288 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
6289 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
6290 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
6292 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
6294 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
6295 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
6297 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
6298 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
6299 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
6300 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
6301 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
6303 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
6304 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
6305 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
6307 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
6308 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
6309 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
6310 above, and defaults to 'peek.
6312 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
6313 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6315 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
6316 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
6318 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
6320 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
6321 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
6322 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
6323 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
6324 a delimiting character.
6325 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
6327 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
6328 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
6329 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
6330 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
6331 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
6332 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
6334 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
6335 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
6337 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
6338 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
6339 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
6341 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
6342 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
6343 the array to read and write.
6345 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
6346 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
6349 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
6351 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
6354 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
6355 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
6356 Values for COMMAND are:
6358 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
6359 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
6360 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
6361 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
6362 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
6363 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
6364 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
6365 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
6367 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
6369 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
6370 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
6371 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
6372 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
6373 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
6374 corresponding return set will be the same.
6376 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
6379 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
6380 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
6381 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
6382 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
6383 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
6384 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
6385 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
6386 special file being created.
6388 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
6389 clashing with various SCSH forks.
6391 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
6392 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
6393 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
6394 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
6395 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
6396 and originating address.
6398 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
6399 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
6400 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
6402 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
6405 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
6406 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
6409 (status:exit-val STATUS)
6410 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
6411 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
6412 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
6413 this function returns #f.
6415 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
6416 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
6417 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
6420 (status:term-sig STATUS)
6421 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
6422 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
6425 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
6426 a valid STATUS value.
6428 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
6430 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
6431 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
6433 Component Accessor Setter
6434 ========================= ============ ============
6435 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
6436 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
6437 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
6438 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
6439 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
6440 year tm:year set-tm:year
6441 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
6442 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
6443 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
6444 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
6445 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
6447 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
6448 describing the host system:
6451 ============================================== ================
6452 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
6453 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
6454 release level of the operating system utsname:release
6455 version level of the operating system utsname:version
6456 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
6458 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
6459 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
6460 system's user database:
6463 ====================== =================
6464 user name passwd:name
6465 user password passwd:passwd
6468 real name passwd:gecos
6469 home directory passwd:dir
6470 shell program passwd:shell
6472 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
6473 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
6474 system's group database:
6477 ======================= ============
6478 group name group:name
6479 group password group:passwd
6481 group members group:mem
6483 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
6484 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
6488 ========================= ===============
6489 official name of host hostent:name
6490 alias list hostent:aliases
6491 host address type hostent:addrtype
6492 length of address hostent:length
6493 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
6495 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
6496 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
6500 ========================= ===============
6501 official name of net netent:name
6502 alias list netent:aliases
6503 net number type netent:addrtype
6504 net number netent:net
6506 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
6507 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
6511 ========================= ===============
6512 official protocol name protoent:name
6513 alias list protoent:aliases
6514 protocol number protoent:proto
6516 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
6517 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
6521 ========================= ===============
6522 official service name servent:name
6523 alias list servent:aliases
6524 port number servent:port
6525 protocol to use servent:proto
6527 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
6528 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
6531 ======================================== ===============
6532 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
6533 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
6534 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
6535 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
6537 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
6538 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
6539 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
6541 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
6542 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
6544 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
6545 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
6547 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
6548 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
6550 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
6552 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
6554 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
6555 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
6556 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
6558 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
6559 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
6560 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
6561 return the remaining characters as a string.
6563 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
6564 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
6565 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
6567 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
6569 * Changes to the gh_ interface
6571 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
6574 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
6577 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
6578 and returns the array
6580 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
6581 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
6582 the user to interpret the data both ways.
6584 * Changes to the scm_ interface
6586 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
6587 symbol's value from C code:
6589 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
6590 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
6591 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
6592 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
6594 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
6595 without assigning them a value.
6597 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
6598 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
6599 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
6601 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
6602 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
6603 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
6605 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
6606 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
6608 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
6609 doesn't actually care about that.
6611 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
6612 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
6613 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
6615 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
6616 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
6617 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
6618 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
6619 which we have just created and initialized.
6621 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
6622 should one occur. We call it like this:
6623 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
6625 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
6626 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
6627 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
6628 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
6629 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
6630 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
6633 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
6634 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
6635 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
6636 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
6637 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
6638 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
6639 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
6642 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
6643 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
6644 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
6645 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
6646 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
6649 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
6650 scm_internal_catch, except:
6652 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
6653 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
6654 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
6655 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
6658 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
6659 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
6660 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
6662 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
6663 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
6664 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
6665 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
6668 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
6669 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
6670 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
6672 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
6673 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
6674 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
6675 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
6676 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
6678 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
6679 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
6680 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
6682 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
6683 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
6684 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
6686 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
6687 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
6689 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
6690 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
6691 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
6694 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
6695 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
6696 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
6697 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
6698 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
6699 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
6700 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
6703 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
6704 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
6706 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
6707 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
6708 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
6709 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
6710 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
6713 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
6714 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
6716 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
6717 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
6720 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
6721 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
6723 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6726 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
6727 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
6728 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
6729 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
6730 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
6731 given the following arguments:
6733 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
6735 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
6737 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
6739 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6742 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
6743 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
6744 command-line arguments.
6746 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
6747 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
6748 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
6749 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
6750 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
6751 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
6754 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
6757 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
6758 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
6760 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
6761 rearranged slightly. They are now:
6763 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6764 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6765 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
6766 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
6768 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6769 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6771 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6772 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
6773 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
6774 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
6776 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
6777 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
6779 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
6780 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
6782 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
6784 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
6785 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
6786 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
6789 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
6790 returns a port instead of an FD object.
6792 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
6793 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
6798 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
6801 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
6803 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
6804 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
6805 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
6806 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
6808 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
6810 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
6812 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
6813 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
6814 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
6815 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
6816 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
6817 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
6818 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
6819 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
6820 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
6821 for more information.
6823 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
6824 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
6826 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
6827 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
6828 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
6829 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
6830 following two lines at the top of the file:
6832 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6835 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
6836 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
6837 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
6839 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
6841 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
6843 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
6846 (display (car args))
6847 (if (pair? (cdr args))
6849 (loop (cdr args)))))
6852 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
6853 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
6854 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
6855 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
6856 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
6857 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
6861 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
6864 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
6867 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
6869 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
6870 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
6871 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
6872 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
6873 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
6876 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
6877 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
6878 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
6879 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
6880 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
6883 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
6886 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
6887 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
6888 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
6891 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
6892 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
6893 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
6895 to see a backtrace, and
6896 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
6897 to see them by default.
6901 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
6903 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
6905 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
6906 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
6909 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
6910 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
6911 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
6912 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
6915 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
6916 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
6917 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
6918 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
6919 functions which inspired them.
6921 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
6922 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
6926 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
6928 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
6930 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
6931 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
6934 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
6935 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
6936 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
6938 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
6939 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
6940 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
6941 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
6942 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
6944 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
6946 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
6947 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
6948 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
6951 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
6954 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
6956 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
6957 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
6958 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
6959 above should serve their purposes.
6961 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
6962 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
6963 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
6964 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
6966 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
6969 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
6970 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
6971 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
6972 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
6974 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
6975 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
6976 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
6977 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
6979 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
6980 for the `read' function.
6983 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
6984 to that of `integer?'.
6986 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
6987 use the R4RS names for these functions.
6989 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
6990 it simply returns the object's property list.
6992 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
6993 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
6994 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
6995 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
6997 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
6999 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
7002 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
7004 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
7005 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
7007 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
7009 void (*main_func) (),
7012 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
7013 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
7014 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
7015 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
7016 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
7018 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
7019 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
7020 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
7021 know which arguments have been processed.
7023 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
7024 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
7025 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
7026 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
7027 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
7029 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
7030 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
7031 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
7032 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
7033 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
7034 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
7035 people from making that mistake.
7037 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
7038 convenient ways to override these when desired.
7040 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
7042 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
7046 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
7049 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
7050 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
7051 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
7052 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
7055 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
7056 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
7057 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
7058 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
7061 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
7062 have been added to the Guile library.
7064 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
7065 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
7066 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
7069 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
7070 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
7071 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
7073 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
7074 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
7075 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
7076 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
7077 argument from the list.
7080 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
7083 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
7084 null-terminated string, and returns it.
7086 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
7087 to a Scheme port object.
7089 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
7090 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
7095 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
7097 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
7098 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
7099 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
7100 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
7101 code as a special datatype.
7103 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
7104 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
7105 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
7106 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
7107 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
7110 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
7111 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
7112 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
7113 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
7114 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
7116 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
7119 Copyright information:
7121 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7123 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7124 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7125 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7126 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7128 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7129 of this document, or of portions of it,
7130 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7131 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7136 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"